Twenty-five years ago, some 30,000 women and men from nearly 200 countries arrived in Beijing, China, for the Fourth World Conference on Women determined to recognize women’s rights as human rights. The conference culminated in the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action: the most comprehensive policy agenda for gender equality. In the years following, women pressed this agenda forward, leading global movements on issues ranging from sexual and reproductive health rights to equal pay.
Today, these movements have expanded. They are being organized by and for adolescent girls – girls from all walks of life who are boldly demanding action against discrimination, violence, and poor learning opportunities. This discrimination is not only in the underdeveloped societies but it cuts across the World as a whole hence the need for a Global Action. For instance, the case for education of the girl child; In the words of Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani activist for female education and the youngest Nobel Prize laureate, she said –
“Education is education. We should learn everything and then choose which path to follow. Education is neither Eastern nor Western, it is human”. – Malala Yousafzai
Background
On December 19, 2011, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 66/170 to declare October 11 as the International Day of the Girl Child, to recognize girls’ rights and the unique challenges girls face around the world. The International Day of the Girl Child focuses attention on the need to address the challenges girls face and to promote girls’ empowerment and the fulfillment of their human rights.
Adolescent girls have the right to a safe, educated, and healthy life, not only during these critical formative years, but also as they mature into women. If effectively supported during the adolescent years, girls have the potential to change the world – both as the empowered girls of today and as tomorrow’s workers, mothers, entrepreneurs, mentors, household heads, and political leaders. An investment in realizing the power of adolescent girls upholds their rights today and promises a more equitable and prosperous future, one in which half of humanity is an equal partner in solving the problems of climate change, political conflict, economic growth, disease prevention, and global sustainability.
Women and girls represent half of the world’s population and, therefore, also half of its potential. Gender equality, besides being a fundamental human right, is essential to achieve peaceful societies, with full human potential and sustainable development. Moreover, it has been shown that empowering women spurs productivity and economic growth.
Unfortunately, there is still a long way to go to achieve full equality of rights and opportunities between men and women, warns UN Women. Therefore, it is of paramount importance to end the multiple forms of gender violence and secure equal access to quality education and health, economic resources, and participation in political life for both women and girls and men and boys. It is also essential to achieve equal opportunities in access to employment and to positions of leadership and decision-making at all levels.
The UN Secretary-General, Mr. António Guterres has stated that achieving gender equality and empowering women and girls is the unfinished business of our time and the greatest human rights challenge in our world.
My Voice, Our Equal Future
Progress for adolescent girls has not kept pace with the realities they face today and the current COVID-19 challenges have reinforced many of these gaps. This year, under the theme, “My Voice, Our Equal Future”, let’s seize the opportunity to be inspired by what adolescent girls see as the change they want, the solutions- big and small- they are leading and demanding across the globe.
In 2020, we commemorate 25 years since the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action – the global agenda for advancing the rights and empowerment of women and girls, everywhere. Generation Equality was also launched in early 2020 as a multi-year, multi-partner campaign and movement for bold action on gender equality. A clear narrative and actions related to the needs and opportunities of adolescent girls and their solutions is central to the Generation Equality mission.
As adolescent girls worldwide assert their power as change-makers, International Day of the Girl 2020 will focus on their demands to:
- Live free from gender-based violence, harmful practices, and HIV and AIDS
- Learn new skills towards the futures they choose
- Lead as a generation of activists accelerating social change
Ways to get involved
- Share stories of inspiring adolescent girls or girl-led organizations who are developing innovative solutions or leading efforts towards positive social change, including gender equality, in their communities and nations. Let’s amplify their leadership, actions and impact to inspire others.
- Participate in a youth-led digital activation launching on International Day of the Girl. Young people across the world are developing a digital activism campaign, aiming to raise the diversity of girls’ voices and their vision for a re-imagined future.
The 2030 agenda for sustainable development promises to make human rights real for everyone everywhere. It has 17 goals and gender equality cuts across all of them at a time when we are facing conflict, extremism, and environmental degradation. The SDGs focus on sustainability, equality, peace, and progress. They are serious challenges deepening inequalities around the world. By committing to leave no one behind; the 2030 agenda is very clear, there can be no sustainable development without gender equality. In reality, however, gender inequalities are pervasive in every dimension of sustainable development. Globally women and girls are over-represented among the extremely poor 330 million women and girls live on less than $1.90 a day that is 4.4 million more than men.
Gender inequality doesn’t make sense on any level. By marginalizing the rights of women, we deny ourselves the opportunity to lift millions of men, women, and children out of poverty, not to mention the chance of a just and fair world. From birth, girls and boys, women and men are expected by society to play certain roles and behave in certain ways based on traditions, religion, and other beliefs. These behaviours are learned and shaped the gender norms in a society. Unfortunately in many countries, gender norms create disadvantages for women. Often girls are not sent to school when they become women, they then have limited ability to earn money or realize their potential. Rural women play a major role in agricultural development however in many developing countries women cannot formally own land, without land they cannot get loans to invest in their farms or businesses. This also means they have no control over the use of land or the benefits that come from it. Men generally control the household decisions like how to use the family’s assets, these disadvantages are often reinforced by practices that limit women’s access to services like training, financial services, and others.
In nearly two-thirds of countries, women are more likely than men to report for insecurity. Also, despite recent progress, access to quality education is still not universal, globally 15 million girls will never get a chance to read or write compared to 10 million boys. Climate change has had a proportionate impact on women and children there are 14 times as likely as men to die during a disaster. The majority of urban women are living in conditions where they lack access to clean water, improve sanitation facilities, durable housing, or sufficient living space. In many areas, the current rate of progress is too slow to achieve the SDGs by 2030.
To turn promises into action, we need to step it up now. Social norms that limit women’s opportunities need to be understood and then changed. By taking a gender transformative approach, we can influence social norms and bridge the gaps in access to resources and services between men and women in a lasting manner. Change is needed on many levels and both men and women must be involved for it to happen. We need public action to tackle inequalities and discrimination; we need to invest in policies and programs that work for women and girls. We need more and better data to assess whether what we are doing for women and girls actually works and we need greater accountability at all levels for commitments made but not met. It is time to turn these promises into action and gender equality into a lived reality for all women and girls it’s up to all of us to ensure this journey is successful. Happy International Day of the Girl Child!
