MM News

The United Nations, on December 19, 2011, adopted a resolution to declare October 11 as the International Day for the Girl to promote empowerment of girls around the globe.

The idea behind this day is to acknowledge and celebrate the importance and potential of girls around the world and to promote gender equality. The day also aims to drive efforts to eliminate unique challenges that girls face globally.

Background

In 1995 at the World Conference on Women in Beijing countries unanimously adopted the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action – the most progressive blueprint ever for advancing the rights of not only women but girls. The Beijing Declaration is the first to specifically call out girls’ rights.

On December 19, 2011, 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.

Attention on the need to address challenges

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 of 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.

Theme and significance of the day

This year, the theme for International Day of the Girl is – ‘My voice, our equal future’ – she makes decisions about her body, her life.

Gender-based discrimination against girl child results in inequalities in areas such as access to education, nutrition, medical care, and legal rights.

Underage marriage and sexual violence

Today the girls are facing one of the severe issues underage marriage and sexual violence. Girls across the globe are susceptible to forced underage marriage and sexual violence. Every year, 12 million girls are pressed into marriage before they turn 18, according to UNICEF data.

In every two seconds more or less one girl pressed into marriage who is not yet ready for practical life. Globally, one in every five girls has faced sexual violence.

Child marriage culture in Pakistan

In Pakistan, there is also a Federal Child Marriage Restraint Act 1929 and Punjab Child Marriage Restraint (Amendment) Act 2015 which fixes the marriageable age for girls at 16 and boys at 18.

Both laws declare underage marriage a punishable offense. Unfortunately, these existent laws haven’t brought any significant decline in early marriage cases. Almost one-third of girls in Pakistan marry before they approach 18 years of age.

According to the WHO report (Demographics of Child Marriage in Pakistan), 21 percent of girls under the age of 18 and 3 percent of girls under 15 get married in Pakistan.

Additionally, the rate of forced child marriages in Pakistan is increasingly high. Huge proportions of young girls are forced to marry under the age of 18 due to myriads of socio-cultural reasons in the country.

According to UK’s Forced Marriage Unit, Pakistan with 439 cases, ranked the highest among the top four ‘focus’ countries in 2017, followed by Bangladesh, Somalia and India. Child marriage is one of the leading causes of death among girls aged 15 to 19 during pregnancy and childbirth.

The situation of education for girls

Women make up more than two-thirds of the world’s 796 million illiterate people. According to global statistics, just 39 percent of rural girls attend secondary school.

This is far fewer than rural boys (45 percent), urban girls (59 percent) and urban boys (60 percent). In Pakistan, a half-kilometer increase in the distance to school will decrease girls’ enrolment by 20 percent.

Pakistan World worst country

Pakistan was described as “among the world’s worst-performing countries in education,” at the Oslo Summit on Education and Development. Across Pakistan, generation after generation of children, especially girls, are locked out of education—and into poverty.

Thirty-two percent of primary-school-age girls are out of school in Pakistan, compared to 21 percent of boys. By grade six, 59 percent of girls are out of school, versus 49 percent of boys.

Only 13% of girls are still in school by ninth grade. Both boys and girls are missing out on education in unacceptable numbers, but girls are worst affected.

Too many girls drop out of school prematurely, especially in low-income areas and low educational achievement for girls has negative impacts not only for them but also for their children and household, as well as for their community and society.

Thus, education being predominantly a provincial subject, the burden of the responsibility to rectify the state of education lies mostly in the federal government. The country cannot defeat its education crisis without securing at least 12 years of education for every Pakistani girl.

Empowering women and girls is crucial

In the last 20 years, moderate progress has been made to ensure the fundamental human rights of girls. However, there is still so much that needs to be done.

Empowering women and girls and promoting gender equality is crucial to accelerating sustainable development.

Ending all forms of discrimination against women and girls is not only a basic human right, but it also has a multiplier effect across all other development areas.

Financing human capital, such as education, health and nutrition, is the foundation for building a progressive foundation for human security and society.

Thus, it is high time that all of us come up with productive strategies to protect girls and young women from being subject to early marriages.

Eradication of child marriage calls for long-term policies concerning women empowerment, awareness programs and effective law enforcement and implementation.

Therefore, the government must make concerted efforts to empower young women through formal education, skill enhancement and training. State institutions should work on implementing laws in letter and spirit.

Most importantly, media, civil society and Non-Governmental Organizations must play their key part in spreading awareness about the severe consequences of child marriage, illiteracy and all kinds of violence against women and girls at the grassroots level across Pakistan.