PERSPECTIVE: Give children a chance By Gordon Brown, United nations Special envoy for Global education The voices of young people are at fever pitch. The world’s biggest challenge in the decade to Technologically gifted, hungry for knowledge and with come is bridging the gap between, on one hand, the boundless energy, today’s children and youth adapt opportunities young people have been promised, see quickly. They are connected. This is the generation that others enjoying and expect, and on the other, the denial ‘gets it’. of those opportunities as doors are closed to them and the ladders of opportunity are kicked away. So global leaders should listen. But all too often, they don’t. Somehow, our planet’s future guardians – millions The good news is that children across the world are of them – continue to be underestimated, ignored and participating in rights campaigns. in Bangladesh, abused. now, all that children are likely to see is a greedy young girls are forming child marriage-free zones. Child world that denies them their right to equal opportunities labourers have joined the Global March against Child and the chance to flourish. labour. and a girls’ rights movement pressing for access to education has been inspired by Malala Yousafzai, the despite international laws designed to protect child more than 200 still-missing Chibok girls of nigeria and rights, emergencies and protracted crises affected the 1,000 global youth ambassadors from a World at School, education of an estimated 75 million children and young a campaign working to get all children into school. people 3 to 18 years of age. Many are living without proper access to food, shelter, health care and education. it is time for progressive minds everywhere to support Many of them are victims of human trafficking and sexual these freedom struggles. here is a set of short-term, exploitation. practical proposals that can not only advance the SdGs but also support a global civil rights movement for around 150 million children under the age of 14 are children and young people. engaged in child labour, often in hazardous conditions. Child trafficking is on the rise and 5.5 million children are engaged in forced labour, with thousands more subject Invest in children to abuse, forced into marriage and coerced into militias despite the prohibition of such practices under the rome Making sure children have the opportunities they need Statute of the international Criminal Court (iCC). to flourish and realize their rights will take resources. We must focus on getting every child into school and also for decades, civil rights and liberation movements ensure that quality of learning is consistently high. have fought the worst of oppression – from Western colonialism to South african apartheid, discrimination education Cannot Wait – a fund for education in against african americans and centuries-old prejudice emergencies can address the needs of the estimated against gay and lesbian adults. By comparison, children’s 75 million children affected by crises and protracted rights have been neglected. They continue to be emergencies. The fund, launched in May 2016, would undermined even as world leaders commit to more help offset an annual funding shortfall of US$8.5 billion ambitious targets for health, education and security needed to maintain access to education for these under the newly adopted Sustainable development children. Goals (SdGs). in addition to greater international aid, countries While the number of out-of-school boys and girls of should adopt child-focused budgeting of their available primary school age rose from about 56.6 million in 2010 resources. Under article 4 of the Convention on the to 59 million in 2013, for example, aid to basic education rights of the Child, States parties are obligated to invest has been cut – yet again. it is down nearly 10 per cent in children to the maximum extent of their available since 2010. resources. as a result, increasing numbers of countries The STaTe of The World’S Children 2016 66