In 2011, the United Nations declared October 11 to be International Day of the Girl Child, a day that celebrates the youth movement for gender and youth rights.
This movement has had a major impact on the United States, with girls all over the country participating in the Proclamation Project. This project, noticed by President Obama in 2013, attempted to get local governments to pass Day of the Girl proclamations.
The Day of the Girl U.S. website lists the beliefs of the movement: girls are the experts on issues that affect girls, girls from marginalized communities must be central in conversations about social justice issues involving those communities, truly effective social change cannot come without girls’ leadership and girls’ issues are intersectional.
These beliefs push the movement forward by directing the issues they discuss and focus on. These issues affect girls accros the United States, along with girls around the world.
The movement fights for issues such as reproductive justice, body positivity, gender binary, underrepresentation of women in politics, negative media images, Title IX: Sports & Education Equity Guaranteed, relationship abuse: teen dating & domestic violence, sex trafficking in America, limited work opportunities, rape culture and girls in STEM programs.
To honor this day, the Women’s Resource Center is showing the documentary “I Am A Girl.” The documentary follows 6 young girls as they encounter different cultural aspects of their countries. The documentary will be shown at 6 p.m. Monday in Langdon Hall.