Global Rights Compliance at the Fifth International Conference on the Safe Schools Declaration

On 25–26 November 2025, Ruby Mae Axelson, Lead of Gender and Child Justice at Global Rights Compliance (GRC), participated in the Fifth International Conference on the Safe Schools Declaration (SSD 2025) held in Nairobi, Kenya. Marking ten years since the adoption of the Safe Schools Declaration, the conference brought together governments, UN agencies, civil society organizations, and experts to address the rising number of attacks on education worldwide and inspire stronger commitment to the SSD principles.  

“Education became our lifeline — the one thing that refused to abandon us.”
— Ibrahim Zanna Sunoma, Youth Representative 

Ruby participated in the Plenary Session on “Ensuring Greater Accountability for Attacks on Education” alongside distinguished speakers Michelle Oliel, Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, and Dr Giovanni Alvarez Santoyo, Director and Chief Prosecutor of the Investigation and Accusation Unit (IAU) of Colombia’s Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP). The Session explored legal, institutional, and policy pathways to advance justice and ensure meaningful redress for communities affected by attacks on education.  

Ruby’s intervention highlighted that when compared to the scale of attacks on education across the globe (including in Sudan, Gaza, Nigeria, Afghanistan, and Ukraine) and the centrality of education to stable societies and post-conflict recovery, international and domestic justice and accountability mechanisms have been largely silent and justice remains elusive for the overwhelming majority of victims, survivors and their families. She highlighted three interrelated institutional hurdles that hinder investigations and prosecutions of education-related crime: 

1. The adult centricity within international justice, which acts to sideline the needs and perspectives of children and results in an under acknowledgment of all crimes against and affecting children, including attacks on education;  

1. Gaps in the international legal framework, including the absence of an absolute prohibition on the military use and occupation of educational facilities; and  

1. The failure to recognize the full scope of harm caused by attacks on education, coupled with the incorrect perception that attacks on education are not as grave as other crimes, and therefore less worthy of sustained international attention or prioritization within investigation strategies. 

“The gaps in accountability for attacks on education go beyond the legal framework but relate to a broader problem – one of mindset. The perspectives and priorities of children need to be brought from the margins to the centre, and prosecutions should seek to identify and understand the totality of harm and victimisation caused by attacks on education. After all, a school is never just bricks and mortar, it is at the centre of communities bringing children together in pursuit of learning, opportunity, and dreams of a brighter future”, Ruby Mae Axelson, Gender and Child Justice, Global Rights Compliance.

In Ukraine, where GRC works closely with the Office of the Prosecutor General to support investigations and the prosecutions of crimes against and affecting children, attacks on education have taken multiple forms and caused long-term irreparable damage to children, students, and communities. In Ukraine, thousands of schools have been damaged or destroyed; students have been killed and injured; teachers and educators have been killed, arrested, detained, and tortured. There has been continuous disruption to learning due to frequent air-raid alerts that force children and teachers into shelters across Ukraine. At the same time, in the temporarily occupied territories, Russian authorities have systematically sought to militarise education implementing pro-Russian curriculum and militarized activities.  

Ruby highlighted the ongoing work of Ukraine to prosecute and investigate attacks on education which has included multiple cases on the destruction of education buildings, including a recent Notice of Suspicion which charges four Russians in absentia with war crimes for role in deadly missile strike on Kryvyi Rih playground. GRC continues to work closely with investigative and prosecutorial partners to analyse the legal framework relevant to charge broader crimes attacking education through the indoctrination of children and militarisation of childhood.  

The conference reaffirmed States’ commitment to preventing attacks on education and strengthening accountability mechanisms globally and concluded with the adoption of the Nairobi Outcome Document, a renewed global roadmap to ensure that education is never a target of war.