Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has devastated schools and kindergartens throughout the country, Human Rights Watch said in a report and video released today. Since February 2022, over 3,790 educational facilities have been damaged or destroyed, according to Ukrainian government figures, severely interrupting access to education for millions of children. The 63-page report, “Tanks on the Playground,” documents the damage and destruction of schools and kindergartens in four Ukrainian regions during the first months of the fighting. Most of the damage to educational facilities resulted from aerial attacks, artillery shelling, rocket strikes, and, in some cases, attacks using cluster munitions – causing significant damage to roofs, the collapse of walls, and major debris in classrooms. Russian forces frequently looted and pillaged schools they occupied, a war crime.

Each year tens of thousands of adolescent girls across Africa drop out of school or experience discrimination because they are pregnant, married, or are mothers. In this Twitter Space, we discuss HRW's latest report on education access and barriers across Africa.

Address Shocking Toll on Students, Teachers, Schools

Girls suffered sexual violence and other abuses when armed groups attacked hundreds of schools during the 2016-2017 Kasai conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, said the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA) in a report released today. The violence affected all children, but girls were particularly harmed, used as “magical” forces that would ward off bullets despite being unarmed, and raped and forcibly “married” to troops.

Government security forces and armed separatists have committed grave abuses against residents of Cameroon’s Anglophone region.

Deliberate and indiscriminate attacks on schools and universities, their students, and staff have become more widespread over the last five years, the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA) said in the 2018 edition of its flagship report, released today.

Syrian government and Russian forces have escalated their airstrikes on Eastern Ghouta, a suburb approximately 15 kilometers from the center of Syria’s capital Damascus, killing dozens of civilians in apparently unlawful attacks.

Attacks by the Taliban and other militant groups are having a devastating impact on education in Pakistan.