This year’s theme is “Girls’ vision for the future.” The theme represents “the need for urgent action and persistent hope, driven by the power of girls’ voices and vision for the future.”
As we noted last week, this celebration was started by the United Nations to “recognize girls’ rights and the unique challenges girls face around the world.”
Here are a few staggering global stats from the United Nations that demonstrate some of these challenges:
🔸 31% of girls haven’t completed lower secondary school and 56% girls haven’t completed upper secondary school. (https://tinyurl.com/UnicefSecondary)
🔸 Girls 5-14 years old spend 160 million more hours a day on domestic work and unpaid care compared to boys their same age. (https://tinyurl.com/UnicefUnpaidWork)
🔸 Girls make up 71% of new HIV infections in adolescents 10-19 years old. (https://tinyurl.com/UnicefHIV)
🔸 24% of married or partnered adolescent girls 15-19 years old will experience physical or sexual intimate partner violence in their lifetimes. (https://tinyurl.com/LancetIPV)
Empowering girls is fundamental to achieving shared development goals across nations. In 2015, world leaders adopted the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The 2030 Agenda provides a shared blueprint for all countries to achieve sustainable economic, social, and environmental change. It builds off the work of the 2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to drive forward progress and tackle setbacks.
Achieving gender equality and empowerment of women and girls is integral to each of the 17 SDGs. It’s difficult to imagine these goals being met if girls aren’t given the opportunity to dream big, turn those dreams into reality, and reach their full potential.
Investing in girls positively impacts not just them, but also their families, communities, and societies as a whole. Only through ensuring the rights of women and girls can we achieve equity, a world free of poverty, economies that work for all, and a healthy environment now and for future generations.
Observances dedicated to our strong girls and women don’t end with the International Day of the Girl. We continue to uplift them throughout the year with these important days:
🗓️ November 20 – World Children’s Day
🗓️ February 11 – International Day of Women and Girls in Science
🗓️ February 6 – International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation
🗓️ March 8 – International Women’s Day
For all the girls around the world, let’s work with and for today’s girls to raise their voices and achieve their dreams!
Sources:
🔹 United Nations – International Day of the Girl Child
🔹 United Nations – Sustainable Development Goals Report 2024
🔹 UNICEF – A New Era for Girls
🔹 The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health – Intimate partner violence against adolescent girls: regional and national prevalence estimates and associated country-level factors
This post was updated from the original FB post written by Nerd MK Haber on October 10, 2024.
