Qatar’s first lady is leading a new UN initiative to draw global attention to education-deprived children in conflict zones, AP reports.

Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, a special envoy for UNESCO, said some 61 million children around the world are not in school, many of them from Arab countries including Yemen, Syria and Palestine.

She told the Associated Press about the project:

There has been “a sort of indifference” to attacks on students, teachers and schools by government forces and armed groups, Mozah said. It’s time, she added, “to break the silence.”

As a start, Mozah is launching the first handbook summarizing international laws that protect education during armed conflict…

The handbook, “Protection of Education in Insecurity and Armed Conflict”, covers international human rights, humanitarian and criminal law. She said it’s a tool for lawyers, prosecutors, judges, victims and laymen “to ensure that those who violated the laws related to protection of education can be brought to justice.”

The first lady’s remarks come ahead of next week’s UN General Assemby meeting in New York, which will make “education under attack” a special focus.

During her time in the US, the chairperson of Qatar Foundation also visited a school in Harlem that teaches Arabic to students, a QF initiative. 

Credit: Photo courtesy of Her Highness’s Office