KABUL - Human Rights Watch has called on world leaders to take action to protect children by endorsing the Safe Schools Declaration at this week's United Nations Security Council debate on children and armed conflict.

So far, 38 countries have joined the Safe Schools Declaration, which was made public in May in Oslo, Norway. Signatories of the declaration agree to endorse new guidelines that call for the protection of schools and universities from military use during armed conflicts.

"Human Rights Watch has documented the use of schools for military purposes in some 26 countries with conflict in the last decade. We've seen the use of schools in Syria, Libya, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan, but really in every region of the world. And that is why it is so important that countries come together right now and commit to this agreement, the Safe Schools Declaration, not to use schools for military purposes," said Zama Coursen-Neff, the Executive Director of the Children's Rights Division at Human Rights Watch.

HRW reports that schools and universities have been used for military purposes by government forces and non-state armed groups in at least 26 countries since 2005.

"Hundreds of thousands of children around the world have found their schools not just caught in the crossfire but actually being intentionally targeted as a tactic of war," said Coursen-Neff.

"We've seen school girls abducted from their schools in Nigeria, schools attacked in Pakistan, in Syria, children who should find their schools as safe places where they can learn and instead find their schools places of terror and violence," she added.

In early 2011, the UN Security Council requested increased monitoring of attacks on schools and teachers, and military use of schools, according to HRW. In 2014, it encouraged all member countries to "consider concrete measures to deter the use of schools by armed forces and armed non-State groups in contravention of applicable international law."

The Security Council debate on children and armed conflict is scheduled for Thursday.

This comes after a growing number of schools in Afghanistan closed for short intervals this year due to security risks.

Only last month, a number of schools and education centers closed in Pol-e-Khomre capital, northern Baghlan province due to missile attacks.

At the time, local officials said clashes between insurgents and security forces and missile attacks in Pol-e-Khomre forced authorities to send students home for a few days.

Earlier in May Uruzgan deputy head of the provincial education department Mohammad Noor Amini also had to close schools due to insecurity. At least 69 schools in Uruzgan were closed for a few days. (Tolonews)