Fragile and conflict-affected states that sweep their human rights violations under the rug are a bit like certain family gatherings. Everyone knows the problems are there, but they pretend the alcoholic uncle is “just having a good day,” or that grandpa’s racism is really just him being “particular.”

The United Nations General Assembly in Paris adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) on December 10, 1948. Formed in the shadow of World War II, the declaration committed world leaders and the international community to uphold fundamental human rights and freedoms so that atrocities like the Holocaust would never happen again. However, this roadmap of guaranteed and unequivocable rights has not guided all leaders and states equally. In many places facing political turbulence, such as Hong Kong with the passage of the National Security Law imposed by the Chinese government, the focus has shifted away from protecting the equal rights of citizens and toward suppressing the rights and freedoms of entire populations. 

In this context, moving away from an honest retelling of human rights struggles and violations serves a larger purpose for the state. This is especially visible in fragile and conflict-affected states. Here, I use the World Bank Group classification of fragile and conflict-affected situations as the basis for this analysis. When this shift appears in curricula and modern textbooks, these states are deferring to what I call the escapist model of human rights education.

I define the escapist model of human rights education as the deliberate avoidance or denial of human rights achievements, struggles, and the historical record, in order to promote a nationalistic state agenda or gain political leeway for a threatened government. For instance, a curriculum might mention a civil war but omit any discussion of mass atrocities or displaced communities, presenting the conflict as a necessary step toward national unity. In contrast, a critical model of human rights education would invite students to confront the uncomfortable truths about state actions and to question official narratives.

States use many tactics when they rely on the escapist model of human rights education. Within this framework, three main drivers stand out:

1. To prevent further deterioration or destabilization of the country as a whole
2. To protect the state’s perceived legitimacy and authority to rule
3. To avoid exposing state-committed human rights violations, whether past or present

The escapist model often goes beyond simply avoiding human rights education. This becomes a pathway for reshaping it into a narrow form of citizenship education that promotes a nationalistic identity and deepens social divides in ethnically diverse societies. In this context, citizenship rights and human rights are often treated as interchangeable, even when they are not. Citizenship rights are typically tied to membership in a particular nation-state and are susceptible to policy changes where the state reserves the right to grant, limit, or even revoke fundamental rights and freedoms.

Susan Garnett Russell and Dijana Tiplic support this emerging model of human rights education through their hierarchical linear model study of 528 secondary social science textbooks from 71 countries, covering the years 1966 to 2008. They conclude that “countries emerging from internal ethnic or religious conflict will be less likely to emphasize rights discussion and, rather, will emphasize a nationalistic civic identity."

In 2007, Elizabeth A. Cole published Teaching the Violent Past: History Education and Reconciliation. Within Cole’s book, Jon Dorschner and Thomas Sherlock examine India’s and Pakistan’s post-colonial history syllabi, which emphasize national pride and loyalty after British rule. Their analysis of the standardized curricula finds that India and Pakistan make sweeping generalizations about each other and use textbooks as tools to promote nationalistic values and to further divide the people and nations of South Asia.  

Another example of the escapist model can be found in the curriculum and textbooks of Türkiye. Abdulkerim Sen analyzed 58 textbooks, using directed content analysis that were used for teaching between 1950 and 2020. His examination reveals a persistent pattern of avoidance around human rights education and Türkiye’s own human rights violations, which appears to reflect a preference for promoting an abstract nationalistic identity.

Taken together, these examples suggest that many fragile and conflict-affected states revert to patterns of cherry-picking history, selecting certain state narratives, global tragedies, and even accounts of their own abuses to present to each new generation of potential changemakers. This deliberate strategy of broad censorship, grounded in the escapist model of human rights education, strips individuals of their fundamental right to learn. That learning is essential for reconciliation and for preventing future abuse; it underpins the long, difficult work of building equity and understanding in an ever-connected world.

Sevara Ubay, a graduate student at American University, focusing on analyzing institutional frameworks and implementing transparent, reliable communication between government institutions and the public. She aspires to conduct on-the-ground work that lifts communities around the world, through education and tangible initiatives that create sustainable opportunities, empower local voices, and drive long-term, community-led development.