This week’s Field Notes challenged me to rethink what it actually means to protect a school during war. Across the ICRC, Human Rights Watch, and Norway’s Safe Schools initiative, one idea became clear: a school can remain physically standing and still lose its ability to protect childhood. The ICRC showed how conflict can pull children from classrooms into armed groups, where they may be used as fighters, messengers, spies, or lookouts. Human Rights Watch revealed another for

Norway’s approach to protecting schools during war shows that advocacy becomes meaningful only when it leads to action. Today, 27 million children living in conflict areas are out of school, while attacks on students, teachers, and educational facilities have been reported across at least 70 countries. International humanitarian law already recognizes schools as civilian spaces, yet legal protection alone has not kept classrooms outside the battlefield. What makes Norway’s re

Human Rights Watch reports a disturbing global trend: between 2024 and 2025, at least 8,500 attacks on education were documented across 83 countries, a rise of more than 40% from the previous two-year period. More than 10,600 students, teachers, and education personnel were harmed. Even more striking, 55 of those countries were not experiencing active armed conflict, suggesting that threats to education extend beyond conventional battlefields. The crisis is particularly sever

A school does not have to be destroyed to become a casualty of war. Human Rights Watch reports that in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, schools are being used to reshape children’s identity, restrict access to Ukrainian education, and introduce them to militarized programs. An estimated 1.6 million children remain in occupied territories, including around 600,000 school-age children. The details make this especially troubling. Ukrainian-language instruction has been removed

A classroom does not become part of war only when it is bombed. The ICRC’s Children Forced to Go to War reveals another, less visible way education enters the battlefield: when children themselves are pulled from schools into armed conflict. Children may be recruited as fighters, but also as spies, messengers, lookouts, or for sexual exploitation. Whatever their role, the result is similar, they are separated from families, deprived of education, and exposed to imprisonment,