"GIRL RISING:" The Impact of Educating Girls; Interview with Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown
MALVEAUX: The fight for girl's education around the world is intensifying, and CNN is playing a part in bringing you the issues. All this week, we have been airing stories of extraordinary girls and the power of education to change the world. It's ahead of our big CNN premiere of the film, "GIRL RISING." My next guest is a leader in that fight for girls. Of course, you remember him as the leader of Great Britain, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, joining us from Edinburgh, Scotland. Sir, very good to see you here. We're going to cover a number of things, but of course, one of the things is ...</s>GORDON BROWN, FORMER BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Great to talk to you. Suzanne.</s>MALVEAUX: Great to see you. Your passion here for girl's education, you call it one of the great human rights issues of our time, and you work as a U.N. special envoy for global education. Why is this something you believe is a human right and one of the greatest human rights at this time?</s>BROWN: This is the great civil right struggle of our generation. It is girls discriminated against, prevented from realizing their potential, 30 million girls not able to go to school, girls like Malala Yousufzai, the Pakistan girl who was shot, having to fight every inch of the way even to get a chance to go to school. And that's why we're under obligation to ensure that, if, as we believe, education breaks the cycle of poverty, we make sure that every girl in the world has that right to go to school.</s>MALVEAUX: What do you think is the biggest obstacle in your work as you travel the world for these girls in getting an education?</s>BROWN: There's discrimination. In some countries, girls are simply not allowed to go to school. There's child labor. Fifteen million children are working when they should be at school. There are girl brides. Ten million girls are married every year, 12, 13, 14, when they should be at school. There's trafficking, as you know, but there's also a lack of teachers and a lack of school buildings and a lack of educational materials. And there are many countries that could actually invest in education that I want to persuade them to do so and end a situation where for years upon years upon years we will still have millions of children, particularly girls, denied the chance of education. And what I'd like to see is a plan over these next three years until 2015 to get every girl to school.</s>MALVEAUX: And when you go to those leaders, when you talk to people and you make that case, do you have a receptive audience? Are you talking to people who say, you know what? I do see the value here, whether it's economic, whether it's political or whether it's just good sense and human rights?</s>BROWN: Yeah, when Malala was shot in Pakistan, there was a revulsion and people realized that they had been silent when, of course, the case for girls' education is unanswerable. And there's no leader in the world that is trying to prevent girls going to school, but they are not doing enough to stop other people like the Taliban stopping girls going to school. So we need them to make education for girls a priority. We need to invest in building schools. It only costs $100 a year to educate a girl in Africa. We need to train the teachers, of course. We need to build the schools. We need to provide the education materials. And there needs to be a global effort because this is also a security issue. If we do not educate young girls and boys, then they will be prey to people exploiting the fact that they have been denied opportunity.</s>MALVEAUX: Sure. As a former prime minister, we don't normally have the opportunity to talk to someone in your stature here. I have to ask you about things that are going on in the news. Of course, it looks like Syria blowing up with this civil war. It was just the White House yesterday saying that the Syrian government has crossed a red line by using chemical weapons. The U.S. could now arm rebels. What do you think of that as appropriate action? Do you think that would be appropriate? Is that necessary at this time?</s>BROWN: Well, I think that it is undoubtedly now true that the use of these chemical weapons is actually happening in Syria. If I may say so, without going into the details of what should happen next, which has to be part of international negotiation and no doubt that will take part in next few days, particularly when the G-8 meets in Britain, we've got to look at the human tragedies here. And there are many lives being lost. There are many families being displaced. There are a huge number of refugees. There are children denied health care and denied education. This is a worldwide human tragedy, the effects of which are going to be felt for years to come. And that's one of the reasons why, if I bring this back to education, you need education without borders. We need to be able to give every child the guarantee that if they are in a conflict zone, if they're in a broken state, if they're in a fragile country that they, just as we guarantee health through Medecins Sans Frontieres and the Red Cross, we can guarantee that they will continue to be able to develop their potential and get education. So these human tragedies which can go on for years and affect generations, we've got to be better prepared to deal with the humanitarian consequences.</s>MALVEAUX: It looks like there seems to be a consensus that's being formed here when you have England, you have France, now the United States, potentially talking about arming rebels. Do you think that the rebels need more support in order to overturn Assad?</s>BROWN: I think there's a number of options that have got to be considered and look to go into that in detail as the politicians will have to do when America, France, Britain and, of course, Russia is there at the G-8 next week. They'll have to look at a number of options. Creating a zone that -- which is free of conflict is one option that's been looked at. And, of course, the question of arms is another issue. But I would prefer myself to do what I'm doing to concentrate on, also, the humanitarian consequences and what we need to do as a world where the tragedies occur because they occur in the Middle East, they occur in Africa, they occur in parts of Asia. We've got to be better prepared in the future to deal with the human fallout when so many young lives, so many children, of course, so many families are just split asunder as a result of a conflict, and we appear to be powerless to deal with the humanitarian consequences. We should have learned the lessons from a long time ago about what to do in these situations.</s>MALVEAUX: All right, former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it. Make sure, of course, to tune in to our special presentation of "Girl Rising." It is this Sunday at 9:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, here on CNN. And a toilet paper shortage in Venezuela? That's right. There's actually an app for that, seriously. We're coming up and we're going to show you how technology is helping folks in Venezuela cope with the shortage.