By Jacqueline Howard, CNN

¹How safe are schools around the world? That’s a question that a new report from the United Nations Children´s Fund (UNICEF) helps answer, and it suggests that schools could and should be much safer. The document finds that about 50% of 13- to 15-year-old students worldwide -- or 150 million of them -- have said they experience diff erenttypes of violence from their peers in and around school.

²Globally, about 720 million school-age children live in countries where they are not fully protected by law against forms of physical punishment at school, according to the report. “Schools are not as safe as they should be, because of bullying, because of corporal punishment by teachers, because of attacks on schools,” said Claudia Cappa, an adviser on statistics at UNICEF.

³Sexual violence also can occur in schools and between peers, the report notes. For instance, in Kenya, about one in five women and men who reported experiencing sexual violence before age 18 said that the first incident was at school. In a study conducted in Mexico in 2013, 7% of boys and 5% of girls in secondary school said that they had experienced sexual insults from their classmates in the previous year.

⁴Attacks against schools are one of the six grave violations frequently perpetrated in armed conflict. Last year, it was verified 396 schools under attack in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 26 attacks on schools in South Sudan, 67 attacks in Syria and 20 attacks in Yemen, according to the report.

⁵As for when violence occurs as a part of the school system, some evidence suggests that younger students are more at risk of physical punishment from teachers than adolescent students, according to the report. For example, in some states of India, 78% of 8-year-old students said that they had been physically punished by teachers at school at least once in the previous week, according to the report.

⁶The data include 122 countries, representing 51% of the global population of children between 13 and 15. The estimated cost of all violence against children is $7 trillion, according to the report. The good news is that there seems to be growing awareness of the harmful health impacts that school violence can have on children and adolescents, Cappa said. “There are more children speaking up against violence in schools and more teachers are getting trained,” she added.

⁷The report calls for governments around the world to develop and enforce laws that fully prohibit corporal punishment, establish effective and accessible response systems to violent acts, and provide resources to school staff members to help them address violence. Other safety measures include separate and well-lit bathrooms, positive and child-centered actions to discipline, and peace promotion in schools and communities.

Adaptado. Disponível em: <https://edition.cnn.com/2018/09/05/health/school-violence-statistics-unicef-study-parent-curve intl/index.html>. Acesso em: 08 set. 2018.

Glossário peer – colega

I) ... a new report from the United Nations Children´s Fund (UNICEF) helps answer... (Parágrafo 1)

II) ... about 720 million school-age children live in countries... (Parágrafo 2)

III) In a study conducted in Mexico in 2013... (Parágrafo 3)

De acordo com o contexto em que foram empregados, esses termos se referem, respectivamente, às noções de: