Global Day of Girl Child observed in Pakistan

“With the Sustainable Development Goals now in place, it is imperative that none of our girls are left behind”, said Reni Jacob from World Vision India.

In Plan Canada’s newly released study, The Unfinished Business of Girls’ Rights, interviews with more than 4,000 girls in Ecuador, Nicaragua, Pakistan and Zimbabwe found that girls across the world are feeling the pain of inequality.

Imagine a girl standing at the fork of a road.

According to statistics from the Malaysian Syariah Judiciary Department (JKSM) in 2012, there were a few 1,165 applications for marriage where one partner was below the legal age of marriage.

“Moreover, even the intermittent cases of forced child marriages and runaways from home due to various reasons illuminate a fraction of the challenges faced by adolescent girls growing up”, said the statement. Our workforce will be more productive, our economies will be sounder, our countries will be stronger and our societies more caring.

“Kidnap marriages” continue in the Caucasus region, where families make deals with their daughters’ abductors and abandon the girls to their fate.

Girls in 26 countries have more chances to be forced into marriage before turning 18 than to enroll in secondary school. Once pregnant they are up to 20 times more likely to die in childbirth than those under 20.

For their sakes – and for ours as a whole – we need to ensure that adolescent girls are not invisible.

It further calls for the enactment and consistent implementation of social, economic and policy mechanisms to combat early marriage and female genital mutilation and the promotion of gender-responsive legislation and policies across all areas especially for adolescent girls who are disabled, vulnerable and marginalised and victims of trafficking and sexual exploitation.

The evidence is clear.

“Many of the underlying causes of child marriage – including social norms that devalue women and girls – apply across all countries”.

This Sunday, 11 October, is the fourth worldwide Day of the Girl Child and the focus is on adolescent girls and the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Invest in and support education, skills training and access to information technology to transform the lives of adolescent girls and prepare them for life, jobs and leadership.

It also calls for investment in health, including puberty education, menstrual hygiene management and sexual and reproductive health education and services and the promotion of zero tolerance against physical, mental, and sexual violence against girls.

Having the highest percentage of child brides in the world, Niger topped the list, in which 76 percent girls get married before 18 while only 10 percent go to secondary schools.