Bede Sheppard

🌍 Join us in Nairobi for the Fifth International Conference on the Safe Schools Declaration!

Hosted by the Government of Kenya with support from key partners.
🗓️ 25–26 Nov 2025
👉 Register now: registration.kenyaconferencessd.co.ke
#SafeSchools2025
#SSD10
#NairobiActionPlan
@gcpea.bsky.social

Education in Mali Shuttered Amid Islamist Armed Group’s Siege Mali’s military junta has temporarily shut down all schools and universities after an Islamist armed group laid siege to the nation’s capital, Bamako, and cut off fuel supplies.

Education halted amidst siege to the capital in #Mali. “Even short interruptions might affect students’ education in a country grappling with armed conflict, violence, and displacement.” @hrw

#Ukraine shows why supporting education in emergencies matters globally. Ukraine's experience of keeping children learning even during an active war shows that it is possible to prioritize education in crisis contexts. @GPforEducation

NEW: US state laws requiring healthcare providers to notify a parent about a young person’s abortion decision are causing harm.

In a new report, HRW and If/When/How document how state-mandated parental notification laws in six US states threaten young people’s health and safety.

Learn more ⤵️

Mali’s junta has temporarily shut all schools & universities after an Islamist armed group laid siege to the capital, and cut off fuel supplies used for school transportation. Both sides in Mali’s conflict need to do more to protect the country’s children. www.hrw.org/news/2025/10... #ChildRights

#Cameroon
Post-election period marred with violence, with at least 4 killed allegedly by security forces, dozens injured, hundreds arrested.
Authorities should immediately instruct security forces to not resort to violence against protesters, @hrw.org

www.hrw.org/news/2025/10...

OPINION | Free Secondary Education Is Malawi’s Most Radical Leap Toward Equality - Malawi Nyasa Times - News from Malawi about Malawi Malawi breaking news publishing 24 hours a day news about Malawi, Malawi Business, Malawi Tourism, Malawi Politics, Malawi News

This compelling article highlights Malawi's new free secondary education policy and why it might be "the single most transformative policy the country could ever take for its future." www.nyasatimes.com/opinion-free...

"Young people have rights too. This Bill treats them as problems to be managed rather than rights-holders to be protected"--@rightsaotearoa.bsky.social urges the #NewZealand government to reject a plan to ban under-16s from social media platforms. www.scoop.co.nz/stories/AK25... #ChildRights

How 48 Ukrainian children were saved from Kharkiv kindergarten hit by Russian drone The story of a dramatic and heroic rescue that has captured the public imagination in Ukraine.

The 'Heroes of Kharkiv' who saved 48 children from kindergarten hit by Russian drone: www.bbc.com/news/article... #AttacksOnEducation

New German Guidelines on Colonial Returns Fail Rights Test Last week, German federal, state, and local authorities adopted Common Guidelines on the handling of cultural assets and human remains from colonial contexts. Despite the welcome efforts to regulate t...

Returning colonial-era cultural belongings & ancestral remains is an international human rights & reparations issue. Communities' rights should be at the core. Yet Germany's new guidelines distance themselves from international law.

Returns aren't goodwill gestures.

www.hrw.org/news/2025/10...

Russian Forces Deliberately Attack UN Aid Convoy On October 14, news broke that Russian forces, using drones, had attacked a United Nations interagency convoy delivering humanitarian aid to Bilozerka in the region of Kherson, southern Ukraine.

Russia, using drones, attacked a UN Convoy in Ukraine. The very next day, they posted video evidence of the attack for the world to see, and not for the first time. Latest for @hrw.org:
www.hrw.org/news/2025/10...

"Misogyny is a favorite tool of authoritarians." @heatherbarr.bsky.social @hrw.org

GOOD NEWS🥳: Malawi's new government announces that secondary education will be free for all from January 2026! mwnation.com/no-more-scho... #ChildRights

‘The loss of education is the loss of the future itself’: Gaza’s children and teachers on two years without school With 97% of schools destroyed or damaged, 600,000 children have just begun their third year out of formal education. Three students and a teacher share their stories – and their hopes

‘The loss of education is the loss of the future itself’: Gaza’s children and teachers on two years without school

172,000 children in England are homeless tonight. And instead of fixing it, Housing Secretary Steve Reed is cutting affordable housing.

How many more families need to suffer before housing is treated as a right?

Displacement in Haiti Reaches Record High as 1.4 Million People Flee Violence Geneva/Port-au-Prince, 15 October 2025 – The number of people displaced by violence and instability in Haiti has reached an unprecedented level, with more than 1.4 million people forced from their hom...

Alarming: "Along Haiti’s border with the Dominican Republic, communities are facing additional strain as more than 207,000 deported Haitians have returned since January 2025, to a country where gang violence has escalated."
www.iom.int/news/displac...

Sri Lanka: Ruinous Tax Policies Stoke Inequality Sri Lanka’s tax policies played a driving role in the country’s devastating 2022 economic crisis and have contributed to the chronic underfunding of education and other public services.

Sri Lanka was once a global leader in education. New @hrw.org report documents how low tax revenues starved schools of funding and squandered this lead www.hrw.org/news/2025/10... #ChildRights

UN Rights Council Strengthens Crucial Protections The latest session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, which concluded last week, offers a glimmer of hope in what are dark times for human rights around the world.

The latest UN HRC session proved wins are possible: it created an independent body to investigate abuses in Afghanistan, renewed vital UN monitoring on Russia, Sri Lanka, Sudan & Cambodia, & adopted an important resolution to address systemic racism.

Read more: https://bit.ly/494Rqdn

Gift of Mrs. David M. Levy

Jacob Lawrence, Child labor and a lack of education was one of the other reasons for people wishing to leave their homes, 1940-41
https://botfrens.com/collections/14377/contents/1134632

Changes to EU Law Will Undermine Corporate Accountability Today the European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs voted to adopt its position amending the European Union’s landmark corporate accountability law that will seriously curtail efforts to mitiga...

Changes decided today by European MEPs to the EU supply chains law will undermine corporate accountability and human rights.

My colleague @hderengerve.bsky.social: www.hrw.org/news/2025/10...

30 years after Beijing Declaration, girls’ education has advanced, but the progress is incomplete.
133M girls remain #OutOfSchool. Women hold only 30% of higher-education leadership roles.
➡️ Explore the new #WorldEducationBlog: bit.ly/4n7MzvB
#HerEducationOurFuture

Saudi Arabia: Comedians Silent on Detained Activists Comedians performing at the Riyadh Comedy Festival did not use their public platform to urge Saudi authorities to free unjustly detained Saudi dissidents, journalists, and human rights activists

🚩On @jimmykimmellive.bsky.social, Aziz Ansari said he would donate part of his Riyadh Comedy Fest fee to @hrw.org

While HRW cannot accept the donation, it's not too late for him to call for the release of detained Saudi activists Manahel al Otaibi & Waleed Abu al Khair
www.hrw.org/news/2025/10...

QUOTE CARD with text “The German government’s plans to punish some social security recipients with severe cuts to support demonstrates contempt for their human rights. This harsh approach will increase poverty, erode social cohesion, and push many into destitution." Kartik Raj, Senior Europe Researcher

The German government's plan for social security "reform" is bad news for #humanrights.

I tried to set out why for @hrw.org here, a couple of weeks back, as we awaited details of these plans:

www.hrw.org/news/2025/09...

Rights Should Guide Welfare ‘Reform’ Debate in Germany The partners in Germany’s governing Christian Democrat-Social Democrat coalition have been sparring over the contents of a planned replacement of the Citizen’s Income social security benefit, with a “...

I am reading reports that the German coalition has agreed the main parts of its welfare "reform" package. Details still emerging.

This shift toward a more punitive logic and harsher sanctions will come at the cost of human rights.

I explain more in this recent piece.

www.hrw.org/news/2025/09...

Lebanon Restricts Education Access for Many Refugees The new government in Lebanon, formed this February under Prime Minster Nawaf Salam, has emphasized the importance of quality education for students in Lebanon and committed to providing all children ...

Education is every child's right, not only a right for those with certain paperwork. Yet Lebanon is again blocking Syrian refugee kids' access to education, requiring they show residency permits or a valid ID to register. From @michellerandhawa.bsky.social: www.hrw.org/news/2025/10... #ChildRights

Brazil: Rio de Janeiro Bill Will Encourage Police Shootings The governor of the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro should veto provisions in a new bill that would give civil police an economic incentive to kill suspects and would weaken forensic analysis, Human...

Lawmakers in Rio de Janeiro have approved a bonus for police who kill suspects during raids.

Rio police killed almost 2 people per day in 2024—86% of them Black.

The bonus will spur officers to shoot instead of seeking arrests.

The governor should veto it.
www.hrw.org/news/2025/10...

UN Progress on the Right to Free Education Momentum is mounting toward a new global treaty to strengthen every child’s right to free education. From September 1 to 3, governments gathered at the United Nations in Geneva to consider an optional...

Great news!

Momentum is mounting toward a new global treaty to strengthen every child’s right to free education.

Comment by @bedeonkidrights.bsky.social ⤵️

www.hrw.org/news/2025/10...

UN Progress on the Right to Free Education: A Clear Path Toward Drafting a New Treaty - NORRAG - In this blogpost, Bede Sheppard reports on a breakthrough UN session in early September at which governments began a process that could strengthen the right to education in international law. Momentum...

Did you know that momentum is mounting toward a new global treaty to strengthen every child’s right to free education?

This is great news!

@bedeonkidrights.bsky.social has all the details⤵️

www.norrageducation.org/un-progress-...

Cambodia: Microfinance Lending Harming Indigenous Groups Predatory lending by microfinance institutions in Cambodia is driving land dispossession and human rights abuses against Indigenous communities.

New @hrw.org report shows how Cambodian Indigenous families take on microcredit debt to pay for public services like education, and documents kids dropping out of school to help parents pay this debt, or because parents’ indebtedness made school unaffordable. www.hrw.org/news/2025/09... #ChildRights

Big step at the UN: 90+ countries participated in discussing processes that could strengthen the right to education in international law

Children spoke. Now the governments must act. Now it’s time to draft.

📘 Read the blog: buff.ly/cY1lJot

#RightToEducation #EarlyChildhoodEducation #EduSky