International Day of the Girl is celebrated every year on 11 October, by the United Nations General Assembly. The purpose of this day is to focus on the importance of “promoting girls’ education, their rights and gender equality”. The day urges global communities to make changes that can empower girls.
Key points
- Women are breaking the boundaries and barriers set up by stereotypes, but many women continue to suffer in silence.
- From maternal health care to parenting support for teen mothers, to digital and life skills training; comprehensive sexuality education and violence prevention programs; Girls urgently need more attention and resources to enable their rights.
- According to UNICEF, the theme of International Day of the Girl 2023 is, “Invest in girls’ rights: Our leadership, our well-being.”
- This theme focuses on taking action to address the rights of girls and women and achieve progress on gender equality.
History and significance
- 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 women’s rights.
- On 19 December 2011, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 66/170 to proclaim ’11 October’ as the ‘International Day of the Girl Child’ to recognize the rights of women and the challenges they face.
Challenges
- According to UNICEF data, almost 1 in 5 girls are still not able to complete lower-secondary education. Additionally, 4 out of 10 girls are not completing post-secondary education.
- In the world’s low-income countries, nearly 90 percent of teenage girls and young women do not know how to use the Internet, while their male peers are twice as likely to use the Internet.
- Globally, girls aged 5–14 spend 160 million more hours per day in unpaid care and domestic work than boys of the same age.
- 3 out of 4 adolescent girls remain victims of new HIV infections.
- Nearly 1 in 4 married adolescent girls aged 15–19 have experienced sexual or physical violence by their peers at least once in their life.