Yes. The No Lost Generation initiative has arisen in an attempt to ensure education for Syrian children, especially Syrian refugee children. Before the conflict, Syria had one of the highest literacy rates and highest school enrolment rates. Our fear is that three years into the conflict, and not knowing how long this will last, Syrian children will lose out. We're not just talking about children in primary school, but all the way through to secondary and tertiary education. This initiative is a means to try to ensure that children continue to get educated.
I think it will be easier to reach refugee children than it is within, and as I said, it reaches all the way up. For example, in Turkey, the Turks are actually training young people midway through their university degrees in the Turkish language so that they can complete their degrees in Turkish universities. That kind of initiative is happening throughout the country.
I would just add that I've worked for many years with UNICEF. I've worked on child rights in conflict areas. I was proud to be associated with the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other conventions looking at the protection of children in armed conflict. I must say that I feel we have enough principles. We have enough standards. We have enough norms. We now are in a situation where we have to find a way of applying them.
To me, I'm shocked. I've been in many crises, and this is the crisis where I find there is the most single-minded disregard for all the norms and international standards that have been developed. It's really disturbing. Children are being targeted, raped and tortured ad nauseam, and there is very little said about this, insufficiently. Even when reports are submitted to the Security Council, as the one recently on the situation of children, it barely raises a ripple.
In terms of what we can do, I think the voice of Canada at every opportunity has to remind that this is not about winning a war; this is about following international standards. How can anyone in this regime or in the opposition expect to be part of a future government when they are war criminals? They have committed war crimes. They have committed crimes against humanity. They have committed acts against all humanitarian standards.
I think we have to get out there to remind the regime, their supporters, the opposition that those who govern, govern in the interests of their people. I think this is totally forgotten in this crisis in a way that I cannot recall in any other.