A/65/219 14. Another positive development is the recent creation of the interdisciplinary Global Coalition for Protecting Education from Attack, comprising United Nations organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and researchers. The Coalition will focus on the prevention of attacks on education, effective response, enhanced monitoring and reporting, increased accountability and development of stronger international norms. 15. Beyond the destruction of educational facilities through deliberate targeting or as collateral damage during armed confrontation, attacks against education also present other faces. For instance, there are reports of the use of acid and gas on girl students on their way to or at school, as well as shootings and suicide bombings in school premises. In some contexts, schools are a prime recruiting ground of children by armed groups. Elsewhere, school buildings are used as training centres or as military bases, turning them into high-value military targets. 16. The motivations for attacking teachers, students and school buildings are numerous and cynical, including to achieve military, political or sociocultural objectives. In some cases, attacks are perpetrated as a means of creating a general climate of insecurity, to destabilize local communities or target them for retribution for perceived support of the Government, or to undermine the Government by destroying symbols of State institutions. The result is a growing disregard for the sanctity of schools, the notion that schools, above all other places, are safe havens for children. The consequence is a growing fear among children to attend school, among teachers to give classes, and among parents to send their children to school. 17. Attacks against schools and hospitals have been designated as one of six grave violations that are now systematically recorded under the Secretary-General’s monitoring and reporting mechanism on grave violations against children in armed conflict. However, such attacks are still underreported and there remains a lack of knowledge concerning the context of attacks, the perpetrators and their specific motivations, and other factors that need to be understood in order to address the problem. 18. It is imperative that schools and other educational facilities be considered as zones of peace for children — safe havens even in contexts of conflict and instability. The concept of schools as zones of peace should extend also to school instruction and curricula, with emphasis on peace education and fostering cultures of tolerance. There are examples in numerous contexts of educational institutions being hotbeds for radicalization and recruitment of children, a trend that must be countered. D. Sexual violence 19. Sexual violence against children, particularly in the context of armed conflict, continues to be of utmost concern. Such violations are exacerbated in conflict situations by the general security vacuum and the lack of administrative, law enforcement and judicial infrastructures, among other factors. 20. Sexual violence is often used to achieve military, political and social objectives through, for instance, the targeting of specific ethnicities or terrorizing populations to force displacement. Data indicate that children are particularly vulnerable to sexual violence in and around refugee and internally displaced 6 10-47421