A/RES/70/137
Rights of the child
47. Also recognizes that a large portion of the world’s children out of school
live in conflict-affected areas, in areas affected by outbreaks of communicable
diseases, such as Ebola, and in regions stricken by natural disasters, and that this is
a serious challenge to the realization of all the rights of the child as well as the
fulfilment of international commitments on education, reaffirms the State’s
obligation to ensure that children continue to fully enjoy their human rights during
conflict and post-conflict periods, as well as in other emergency situations,
including, inter alia, the human right to education, and stresses in that context the
importance of ensuring that children continue to have access to basic services in all
such situations;
48. Expresses its deep concern about the growing number of attacks and
threats of attacks against schools, and recognizes the grave impact of such attacks
on children’s and teachers’ safety, as well as on the full realization of the right to
education, also expresses its concern that the military use of schools in
contravention of applicable international law may also affect the safety of children
and teachers and the right of the child to education, and encourages all States to
strengthen efforts to prevent the military use of schools in contravention of
international law;
49. Calls upon all States to give full effect to the right to education for all
children and in particular:
(a) To eliminate gender disparities in education and to ensure effective and
equal access to inclusive and equitable quality education, including vocational
training, at all levels for all children without discrimination of any kind, particularly
the vulnerable, including indigenous children, as well as children with disabilities
and children in vulnerable or marginalized situations;
(b) To make primary education available, free and compulsory for all
children;
(c) To take all appropriate measures to eliminate obstacles to effectively
accessing and completing education, such as the cost of education, hunger and poor
nutrition, distance from home to school, the institutionalization of children, armed
conflicts, all forms of violence in school, insufficient infrastructure, including lack
of access to water and sanitation, the lack of adequate and physically and otherwise
accessible schooling facilities for girls, and child labour or heavy domestic work,
and to ensure that children who are institutionalized also enjoy their right to
education;
(d) To take all measures, including sufficient budgetary allocations, to ensure
inclusive, equitable and non-discriminatory quality education and to promote
learning opportunities for all children;
(e) To take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against girls
in the field of education and to ensure equal access for all girls to all levels of
education, including through gender-responsive policies and programmes,
improving the safety of girls on the way to and from school, taking steps to ensure
that all schools are accessible, safe, secure and free from violence and providing
separate and adequate sanitation facilities that provide privacy and dignity, and
thereby contributing to achieving equal opportunity and combating exclusion and
ensuring school attendance, including for girls as well as for children from low income families, children who become heads of households and girls who are
already married or pregnant;
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