UNITED NATIONS—Donors have pledged $250 million to educate over one million Syrian children this year but an additional $500 million is urgently needed to fund the program in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, the U.N. envoy for global education said Tuesday.
Gordon Brown warned that “death voyages to Europe” will soar in 2016 as long as Syria’s two million refugee children and millions more displaced inside the country are exploited and don’t have the opportunity for education.
The organization Girls Not Brides recently reported that the child marriage rate among Syrian refugee girls has doubled from 12 percent to 26 percent, he said, and a recent survey estimates that one in three refugee boys and girls have become child laborers.
“It’s urgent that we provide them education and avoid this exploitation and give these children hope for the future,” Brown told a news conference by audio link from Europe.
When he was Britain’s prime minister in 2009 and head of the Group of 20 leading economies, Brown recalled that a trillion dollars had to be raised to support the world economy, so “it ought to be possible to raise $500 million for what is an excellent cause.”
