I was deeply saddened to hear about the 12 girls in Afghanistan who were trampled to death trying to flee their school as the 7.5 magnitude earthquake struck on 26 October. Panicked children ran from their classrooms as rubble fell and walls crumbled before their eyes.
Twelve lives wasted. Twelve opportunities lost forever. Twelve reasons for the international community to get serious about safe schools.
Every death of a child as a result of a natural disaster is a tragedy. But for far too long we’ve accepted these deaths as being the result of a force out of our control.
Safe schools a no-brainer
It’s true, we can’t predict calamities like the Afghanistan quake, but we can be sure that if schools are built to withstand tremors and if school children are taught what to do when the ground starts shaking, lives will be saved. It should be a no-brainer, yet we’re still a long way from all children being sufficiently protected.
The tragic death of the Afghan school children is a stark reminder for the international community that we must step up efforts to ensure all schools are safe for children.
Some 875 million school children live in areas prone to dangerous earthquakes while hundreds of millions more face regular floods, landslides, and extreme wind and fire hazards. This isn’t just a statistic, it is the daily reality of life for millions of girls and boys around the world.
When a 7.8-magnitude earthquake devastated parts of Nepal in April, 5,000 schools were destroyed with many more damaged. What we saw was that those schools built to specific safety standards were the ones left standing while the students in those schools were among the ones who knew what to do as soon as the tremors started.
Prepared for disasters
After any major disaster, making sure schools can stay open is crucial
At Plan International, we have safe schools programmes in 33 countries reaching more than 664,000 children, including 54,000 girls and boys in Pakistan, where I am the director. There are 2 priorities with this programme: ensuring the overall safety of schools and preparing children to respond to disasters. These go hand in hand – and when they are done right, they save precious lives.
We are now looking at expanding our school safety programme across earthquake-affected communities in Peshawar, where there is now a real danger that some schools may not reopen, while those that do may still be badly damaged and potentially dangerous.
After any major disaster, making sure schools can stay open is crucial – even if it means setting up tents as temporary classrooms. Any break in schooling increases the risk that children will drop out and potentially end up working, exploited, abused or even trafficked.
Girls and boys need a safe place to go during the day – not only for their own mental wellbeing, but also for practical reasons because parents are going to be busy working, trying to provide for the family while getting their lives back together.
Keeping children in school
When schools are built to last, classes can resume fairly quickly and those children become a central part of community disaster resilience. Furthermore, passing on to children the right kind of information about what to do in a disaster saves lives and is beneficial to everyone.
We’re not the only ones saying this. There are UN agencies and large international aid organisations who are also putting their weight behind the safe schools initiative.
However, we need increased buy-in from governments and we need to make this a global development priority – not least of all because it affects so many children and that number is only going to increase.
That the 26 October earthquake happened at a depth of more than 200 km with an epicentre in a sparsely-populated area means that it could have been much worse, but I cannot stop thinking about those 12 girls who didn’t need to die that day. Deaths like those can be prevented and it’s within our power to make this happen.