What: Panel discussion on the occasion of the launch of the Minority Rights Group's State of the World's Minorities Report 2009, Special Issue on Education.
Who: Contributors from Minority Rights Group International, the United Nations and UNICEF to the State of the World's Minorities Report 2009, including:
When: Thursday, 16 July 2009 – 11am - 12:30 pm.
Where: Danny Kaye Visitors’ Centre, UNICEF House, Three United Nations Plaza, New York 10017
(44th Street, between 1st and 2nd Avenue)
Why: The panel discussion will discuss key issues affecting minorities today in the area of education and examine recommendations to address them.
About the Speakers:
Mark Lattimer is Executive Director of Minority Rights Group International. Formerly he worked with Amnesty International. Recent publications include Genocide and Human Rights, editor (Ashgate 2007).
Gay J. McDougall is the UN Independent Expert on Minority Issues appointed by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. She served as the Executive Director of Global Rights, leading the development and implementation of programmes in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and the Americas.
Maurice Bryan is a Caribbean-born writer and communications consultant who has worked in a variety of countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and Africa.
Amina Osman is an Education Specialist at UNICEF headquarters, working on gender and quality education.
Background
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child establishes specific protection for children from ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities, in recognition of the particular barriers they face. However, around the world, the exclusion of minority children from primary and secondary education is widespread. Despite the emphasis placed by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child on the rights of children from minorities, rates of illiteracy and innumeracy among minority children are often much higher than national averages.
To highlight these issues, UNICEF has been working with Minority Rights Group International (MRG) on the 2009 edition of State of the World’s Minorities. MRG works to promote the rights of ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities as defined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. MRG is an international non-governmental organization in consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council and observer status with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. Learn more at: www.minorityrights.org
For further information, please contact:
Christopher de Bono, UNICEF New York,
Tel + 1-212-303-7984,
E-mail: cdebono@unicef.org
Anna Azaryeva, UNICEF New York,
Tel + 1- 212-326-7059,
E-mail: aazaryeva@unicef.org
