Nobel laureate Malala Yousufzai on Tuesday called on world leaders to provide education to girls in refugee camps to avoid them being forced into early marriage or child labor.
Her statement came a week before US President Barack Obama hosts the first UN summit on refugees in New York, where he is expected to urge leaders to do more to help refugees in countries like Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and Kenya.
“Why do world leaders waste our time with this pageant of sympathy while they are unwilling to do the one thing that will change the future for millions of children?” Malala said in a statement ahead of the summit on Tuesday next week.
Refugee girls were wondering how long they can stay out of school before they are forced into early marriages or work, she said.
“They’re hoping for more than survival, and they have the potential to help rebuild safe, peaceful, prosperous countries, but they can’t do this without education,” she said.
Fighting in Syria, Afghanistan, Burundi and South Sudan has contributed to a record number of people who were uprooted last year, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which estimates there are 21.3 million refugees worldwide, half of them children.
Almost 80 percent of all refugee adolescents are out of school, with girls making up the majority of those excluded from education, according to a report issued by the Malala Fund, which campaigns and raises funds for educational causes.
It also blamed donor countries for failing to provide adequate funding for secondary education, and failing to deliver on funding pledges made earlier this year.
The report also criticized wealthy donor countries for diverting resources away from host countries in developing regions, such as Turkey and Lebanon, to meet their own domestic refugee costs.
The report concluded by urging donors to commit to providing US$2.9 billion by September 2019 to the Education Cannot Wait Fund.
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