Pakistan

Around the world, higher education communities are overwhelmed by frequent attacks on scholars, students, staff, and their institutions. State and non-state actors, including armed militant and extremist groups, police and military forces, government authorities, off-campus groups, and even members of higher education communities, among others, carry out these attacks, which often result in deaths, injuries, and deprivations of liberty.

This background paper, commissioned by the Education Commission to inform the report The Learning Generation: Investing in education for a changing world, aims to clarify the relevant provisions in human rights law that refer to the involvement of non-State actors in education in mixed education systems.

This report begins by examining some of the explicit and implicit causes of attacks on girls’ education during peacetime and in situations of crisis, including settings of armed conflict, political instability and widespread criminal violence.

This study examines the relationship between institutional autonomy and the security of higher education institutions from violent and coercive attacks. The paper includes a review of the limited literature available, as well as a series of examples illustrating different forms of attacks. These include arrests related to classroom content in Zimbabwe, sectarian divisions in Iraq, impunity for murders of academics in Pakistan, and physical intimidation on campuses in Tunisia. The study suggests that institutional autonomy plays a direct and indirect protective function.

The report provides a thorough analysis of why girls have limited access to education. Despite a firm legal framework, the implementation of the right to education remains problematic, especially for girls. Three main causes are indicated, including gender inequality in cultural practices, poverty and safety risks for girls. The report aims to give a better understanding of the challenges girls face in their struggle to get access to education. The situation in Pakistan serves as an example showing the complex problems surrounding the implementation of the right to education for girls.

This report examines the right to education of children in detention in thirteen countries: Albania, Belgium, Colombia, Ecuador, Italy, Lebanon, Netherlands, Niger, Nigeria, Palestine, Pakistan, Sierra Leone and Uganda.