MANILA, Philippines —  The world is not likely to meet most of the goals of the six Education for All movement that over 160 countries signed up to in 2000 and that it will be missed by a wide margin – especially in regions driven by conflict, a United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) report has cautioned.

Based on its 2011 Global Monitoring Report, UNESCO also warned that armed conflict is depriving 28 million children of an education by exposing them to widespread rape and other sexual violence, targeted attacks on schools and other human rights abuses.

“Armed conflict remains a major roadblock to human development in many parts of the world, yet its impact on education is widely neglected,” UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova pointed out in a press statement.

“This groundbreaking report documents the scale of this hidden crisis, identifies its root causes and offers solid proposals for change,” she said.

The Global Monitoring Report is developed annually by an independent team and published by UNESCO.

The report, which was endorsed by Nobel Peace Prize laureates Oscar Arias Sánchez of Costa Rica; Shirin Ebadi of the Islamic Republic of Iran; José Ramos-Horta of Timor-Leste; and South Africa
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, noted that of the total number of primary school age children in the world who are not enrolled in school, 42 percent (roughly 28 million) live in poor countries affected by conflict.

It said 35 countries were affected by armed conflict from 1999 to 2008 wherein children and schools are in the front line, with classrooms, teachers and pupils seen as legitimate targets.

In Afghanistan alone, at least 613 attacks on schools were recorded in 2009, up from 347 in 2008. Insurgents in northwestern Pakistan have also made numerous attacks on girls’ schools including one in which 95 girls were injured.

Meanwhile, in Northern Yemen, 220 schools were destroyed, damaged or looted during fighting in 2009 and 2010 between government and rebel forces.

Rape and other sexual violence have been widely used as a war tactic in many countries.

“Insecurity and fear associated with sexual violence keep young girls, in particular, out of school,” the reports said.

It stressed that the international courts established in the wake of the wars in the former Yugoslavia and the genocide in Rwanda have firmly established rape and other sexual violence as war crimes, yet these acts remain widely deployed weapons of war.

Of the rapes reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, one-third involve children with 13 percent committed against those under the age of 10. Unreported rape in conflict-affected areas in the east of the country may be 10 to 20 times the reported level.