UN veteran: Without education, people are enslaved

Children’s right to education is a human right.

Swedish UN veteran Yasmine Sherif is sure of her cause.

– The most effective way to enslave people is to prevent them from going to school, which is happening with the girls in Afghanistan, she says.

She has worked all over the world, but her roots are in Stockholm. When UN veteran Yasmine Sherif visits the Swedish capital for a few summer days, it is with an appeal that the relationship between the home country and the international community should develop.

– As a Swede, it is important to be proud that we have a tradition of empathy and world issues. Our values ​​are in line with those prevailing within the UN, she tells TT.

– We can help create a stronger UN.

“Right to fundamental education”

Yasmine Sherif is director of Education Cannot Wait (ECW), a UN fund for education in crisis situations based in New York and has worked within the UN since the 1980s.

The right to education is a basic human right, she points out.

– If you have not received a primary school education and have not learned to read, write or think critically, you cannot use your political, civil and economic rights. Then you become enslaved, she says, and adds that it is a tactic that the Taliban in Afghanistan now use against girls, when they are forbidden to go to school.

Gender apartheid?

Yasmine Sherif herself has extensive experience of the country where she was stationed in 1990 during her first UN mission. In 2021, she led a female UN delegation, which visited Afghanistan and met the leadership of the Taliban there.

The regime’s decision in 2022 to ban women from studying at universities and colleges has had devastating consequences, according to Sherif.

– Many refer to this as gender apartheid. Legally, the word doesn’t exist, but I don’t think you can compare it to anything else, she says.

– Not being allowed to study in Afghanistan as a woman is the same as people not being allowed to study because they have a certain skin color.

Far-reaching consequences

The situation is also bad in other places. The lack of school education in, for example, Latin America, the Middle East and Ukraine has far-reaching consequences for the entire world community.

– If the children there do not receive a basic education, they will one day knock on our door. Most parents in conflict-affected countries want their children to be able to read and write and develop their talents, she says.

– They are ready to get on a boat to cross the Mediterranean to Europe to achieve it.

The parents’ choice is understandable, she believes.

– If I had lived in a war-torn country without a school, I would have done the same thing. If you don’t want these people to come here, you have to make sure that they have access to proper education in their home countries, she says.

Injustice during the pandemic

That there are different conditions between the world’s countries in terms of access to education also became particularly clear during the pandemic, according to Yasmine Sherif.

– Distance learning works in countries with developed infrastructure, but not in a country such as Chad, she says and continues:

– It consists of 90 percent of the desert and you don’t have access to Wi-Fi. This is how it looks in most of the countries in which we work.

“Never gave up”

During her years at the UN, Yasmine Sherif has often been in war and conflict areas. In addition to Afghanistan, she has worked in Cambodia, Bosnia and Sudan, among others. She says that she has witnessed horrific scenes many times, but despite that never considered throwing in the towel.

– Sometimes I have cried when I felt powerless in the face of deep human suffering or lack of action from those who can act. But what is difficult also makes you more convinced, that you fight more.

However, she considers living in the belief that it is possible to change the whole world to be pointless.

– But if we succeed, for example, in changing the life of a single girl who was raped in Congo-Kinshasa, it means everything. Every life is precious, says Yasmine Sherif.

FACTSEducation Cannot Wait (ECW)

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