Malala Day curtain raiser to experts meeting on 10 December

Media Release

The Hague, 6 November 2012

Malala Day curtain raiser to experts meeting on 10 December on rights of girls and boys to education which complements their communities

The global action message of Malala Day, Saturday, 10 November highlighting the lack of education for 32 million girls worldwide will be a curtain raiser to an experts meeting on 10 December to discuss the rights of girls and boys to education which complements their communities, Sabra Bano, director of Gender Concerns International, which will organise this event, said today.

“Monday, 10 December is Human Rights Day and as it marks two months since Malala was shot, we believe the time is crucial to progress our efforts for global education for all children,” Ms Bano said. “We are also mindful of the 2015 UN Millennium goal on universal education.”

She also stressed the importance of boys being fully aware of the urgency of equal education opportunities.    .  

The latest UNESCO figures show that 61 million children are not in school, and 32 million of them are girls.

Saturday 10 November marks one month since Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by the Taliban. She is recovering in a hospital in England. The Taliban claimed responsibility, saying her promotion of education for girls was pro-Western and because she had opposed them.

 The UN envoy for global education, Gordon Brown will visit Pakistan on 10 November with a group of education experts at the invitation of President Asif Ali Zardari to discuss how the country can get its three million girls who are not currently in school - and five million children in total - back into the classroom.

Mr Brown will also  present petitions to President Zardari and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon showing support for Malala and calling on the Pakistani government to draw up an education plan. See http://educationenvoy.org/petition to sign the petition.

For more information please contact Lyn Drummond,

Media and Outreach

 Email: lyn@genderconcerns.org