Today is International Day of the Girl Child, a day marked by the UN to celebrate girls all around the world.
Empowering women and girls and promoting gender equality brings a myriad of social and economic benefits to individuals, societies and nations. Sadly, we have a long way to go before we reach that point: 134 years, to be precise.
Around the world, millions of girls face hunger, exclusion from education and employment, the impacts of the climate crisis, child marriage and sexual violence.
Today, we raise these heartbreaking statistics to demonstrate why we must continue fighting for the rights of girls around the world, and what’s at stake if we fail to.
Education
There are about 1.17 billion girls in the world – and one in ten don’t attend school.
According to data from UNICEF, there are 122 million girls who are out of school – 34 million of primary school age, and 87 million of secondary school age.
There has been progress in championing girls’ education: about two thirds of all countries around the world have reached gender parity in primary school enrolment. But it’s the completion rates – and the gender gap in the completion rates – that illustrate just how far we have to go.
In low income countries, 63 per cent of female students complete primary school, compared to 67 per cent for male students. The gap widens for secondary school students: while 43 per cent of boys finish high school, just 38 per cent of girls do.
Child marriage
Every 30 seconds, a girl is married.
Save the Children International has released its annual Global Girlhood Report for 2024, highlighting the shocking frequency of child marriages in fragile countries, where war, weak institutions and the impacts of climate heighten the likelihood of girls to be forced into marriage.
According to the report, there are 32 million adolescent girls living in what Save the Children identify as “fragility-child marriage hotspots” – countries that have been classified as “fragile” by OECD and therefore have higher rates of child marriages.
Eight of the 10 worst hotspots are located in Africa. The Central African Republic, Chad and South Sudan are the worst affected, the report notes.
The report also found that the 36 million girls living in the 15 countries marked as “extremely fragile” by the OECD are twice as likely to be forced to marry under the age of 17, as opposed to girls living in more stable countries.
Inger Ashing, the CEO of Save the Children International, said the report paints a “bleak” picture for girls, and governments must do more to protect them.
“Persistent and unaddressed inequalities, the climate crisis and the erosion of children’s and human rights mean that girls’ lives continue to be shaped by a cycle of crisis and recovery,” Ashing said. “And this will continue unless urgent action is taken.
“More resources are needed to support the governments, civil society organisations and communities – including girls – in fragile settings to ensure they can respond to the needs. The governments of the fragile countries, UN agencies, civil society organisations, and donors must work together to ensure girls’ rights are protected.”
Sexual violence
Tragically, 370 million girls and women – one in eight – around the world have experienced rape or sexual assault as children.
This statistic is drawn from UNICEF’s world-first estimates on sexual violence in childhood, and includes “non-contact” forms of sexual violence, including online or verbal abuse.
When considering “non-contact” sexual violence, the number of women and girls subjected to abuse before the age of 18 rises to 650 million – one in five.
Catherine Russell, the Executive Director at UNICEF, described sexual violence against children as “a stain on our moral conscience”.
“It inflicts deep and lasting trauma, often by someone the child knows and trusts, in places where they should feel safe,” Russell said.
In fragile states, more than one in four children are subjected to sexual assault and rape, Russell said.
“We are witnessing horrific sexual violence in conflict zones, where rape and gender-based violence are often used as weapons of war,” she said.
Children who are victims of sexual violence – both boys and girls – face higher risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, substance abuse, social isolation, mental health issues and challenges in forming healthy relationships.
Next month, Colombia will host the Global Ministerial Conference on Violence Against Children.