The Syrian Refugee Crisis
As the new school year resumes, there is an immediate emergency: we need to get millions of school-age children off the streets where they are easy prey for child traffickers and those who wish to sell them off into child labor or into forced early marriage. We need to get millions of school-age children off the streets where they are easy prey for child traffickers and those who wish to sell them off into child labor or into forced early marriage. Many agencies focused on emergencies, including UNICEF, UNHCR, the Global Partnership for Education, USAID, the Department for International Development, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dubai Cares and others have long sought a way of providing not just shelter and food, but education in emergency settings, and for years dedicated aid workers have fought for better conditions. But Syria's mass of displaced children -- about 5 million in total and around 2 million of them left out of education and on the streets -- have become a test case of whether we can do better.
--Gordon Brown
