Human Rights Day Observed
Media Release
The Hague, 11 December 2012
Public event on Human Rights Day advances Malala’s
vision to eliminate gender barriers to education
Education is the only way to change mind sets which limit equal education particularly for girls, Pakistan’s Ambassador to The Netherlands, Mrs Fauzia Mazhar Sana told a public meeting in The Hague on 10 December, Human Rights Day, which paid tribute to Malala Yousafzai.
The Director of Gender Concerns International, Sabra Bano, said the event, Malala’s Vision: Gender No Barrier to Education,.should be the start of an ongoing commitment to gender and education.
“We will establish a special committee in cooperation with The Embassy of Pakistan, “she said. “We need to ensure through support from Dutch and European Parliamentarians and The European Commission that the best peace, security and democratic conditions prevail to progress this vital education agenda.”
As the key speaker, Pakistan’s Ambassador, Mrs Sana said Malala, the 15 year old Pakistani schoolgirl who was shot by the Taliban for promoting girls education and is recovering in hospital in England, had become a symbol of resistance against terrorism. “Ëvery Pakistani has been unified through Malala,”she said.
Panelists at the event were, the Pakistan Ambassador, Mrs Sana; Kenya’s Ambassador to The Netherlands, Professor Ruth Chepkoech Rono; the director of Gender Concerns International, Sabra Bano; Ms Jeanne Roefs, coordinator Global Campaign for Education and Professor Pieter W.A. Huisman, Professor of Education Law at the Erasmus School of Law, Rotterdam.
The Kenyan Ambassador, Professor Rono, said to achieve equal education rights, resources should be brought to schools, and economically sustainable projects were needed to generate income to families so that children could go to school. There also needed to be a judicial perspective to address and help children’s rights.
She advocated a holistic approach to impact on the attendance and quality of education. For education rights to be achieved the specific needs of boys and girls needed to be recognised.
There had to be a gender responsive delivery, classroom interactions and management processes, equality in terms of completion rates, performance and life opportunities.
Partnerships and networks should be established between ministries, teachers, parents and local administrations. She said mobile schools were prevalent in northern Kenya and other arid and semi arid regions.
Shukria Hassani, a representative of Afghanistan’s Regional Gender Development Peace Platform, (RGPP) said the platform wanted to support all boys and girls to have equal rights to go to school. The RGPP was initiated in 2009 in Kabul with five neighbouring countries, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, India, and Uzbekistan.
“ I would like to see an advisory group established. in Afghanistan to work with neighbouring countries on this issue,” she said.
Thirteen year old Dutch schoolgirl Rebecca Hagen also spoke at the event about how she motivated her classmates and the residents of her home town of Wassenaar to design greeting cards for Malala and send them to her in hospital.
She said she had felt great empathy with Malala because they were close in age and she wanted to do something special for her.
Contact:
Lyn Drummond
Communications and outreach
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Phone: 00 31 (070) 4445082