The Power of Humanity
United Nations Day Statement by Education Cannot Wait Executive Director Yasmine Sherif
There is a fork in the road before us. The international rules-based order is dangerously at stake. We live in a world unconscionably shattered by conflict, destruction, unbearable human suffering and impunity. This is because the comprehensive framework of international law is now blatantly disregarded. This world order – now hanging on a thread – is grounded in the founding principles and values of the United Nations.
Out of the ashes of World War II, the United Nations was born with a visionary and profoundly felt purpose: “To save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind; to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small; to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained; and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.”
On this year’s United Nations Day, the principles and values enshrined in the UN Charter are at risk as never before. We stand at a crossroads. We have to choose between realpolitik and ethical politics, between desperation and inspiration, between power and humanity. It is time to be clear about our priorities – confident that where there is a will, there is a way. We must therefore rearrange misplaced priorities. This means pursuing ethical politics, which in turn, will inspire us all to embody the power of humanity.
In Gaza, over 41,000 Palestinians have already been killed, including around 12,000 innocent children. People live in fear for their lives, surviving day-by-day amidst bombed-out cities. Today, over 1.8 million people in Gaza face extreme hunger while innocent hostages remain in captivity. The impact of the war has set development back in the State of Palestine by nearly 70 years, according to a new UN report. Lebanon is now caught into yet another conflict of destruction. In Sudan, allegations of atrocities abound with “reports of widespread use of sexual violence as a weapon of war, of the recruitment of children by parties to the conflict and of extensive use of torture,” according to the United Nations.
In Ukraine, school children are forced underground to continue their education in subway-stations – their lives and their futures smashed to pieces by a brutal war. In Afghanistan, girls are banned from their right to secondary education and even from just expressing themselves. And in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, another horrific conflict marked by gross sexual violations, violence continues unabated. Across the Sahel and sub-Saharan Africa, the number of refugees are growing by the day, forced to flee for their lives, dispossessed and their children denied their education.
The inhumanity seems never ending. The number of innocent children and adolescents losing their education – their only hope – are rapidly escalating. Should it continue in this pace, we will soon hit a quarter of a billion innocent children and adolescents never having had a chance to go to school, learn and become useful to their societies and the world at large.
As the global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises in the United Nations, Education Cannot Wait (ECW) is driven by the power of humanity. Inspired by international legal, ethical and normative frameworks, including the UN Charter and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, ECW firmly believes that every child matters equally. Making this choice is easy. But that is not enough. Making this choice must manifest in action. That’s the power of humanity.