October 11, 2013 marks the UN’s second annual International Day of the Girl Child, the result of an initiative spurred by NGO Plan International’s Because I Am a Girl campaign. This year’s Day of the Girl focuses largely on the status of girls’ education, which remains a contentious issue in many parts of the globe.
While education for girls remains an uncontested right in the U.S., millions of girls around the world are deprived of the classrooms and teachers that would otherwise empower them. More women than men may be enrolled in universities and other post-secondary institutions worldwide, but 65 million girls do not attend school. The education gap between boys and girls is even more shocking, especially in regions like Sub-Saharan Africa where in some countries almost twice more boys than girls attend school.
Millions of girls around the world are deprived of education for a wide variety of factors that the UN seeks to alleviate. Countless girls still do not have access to primary and secondary education, whether it be that the number of schools is not enough, they live amidst political instability, or schools and teachers are absent from the area. Traditional notions of gender also play a role as sons are sent to school while girls are encouraged to take care of the household, especially in areas steeped in deep poverty. Women’s health also continues to serve as a focal point in the fight to educate girls, as pregnancy and HIV/AIDS among young women prevent them from attending school.
But in many communities, girls face security threats that punish them for seeking education, as was the case with Malala Yousafzai. The Pakistani girl was the victim of an unsuccessful assassination attempt when was shot in the head by members of the Taliban last year for her staunch advocacy of female education. The incident infuriated women’s education advocates worldwide and made Yousafzai the official face of the first Day of the Girl. This year’s focus on education has thrown Yousafzai into the spotlight again, especially after she was awarded the E.U.’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, an award that further cemented her role as one of the world’s leading education activists.
Various NGOs and local organizations are leading their own initiatives to promote girls’ education on this day. Meanwhile, the UN and its member states have pledged to remove the barriers blocking millions of girls from receiving the schooling they need to succeed. From building more accessible schools to revising school curricula, the transnational body has laid down the framework for future projects that will ensure girls’ access to education.
“The fulfilment of girls’ right to education is first and foremost an obligation and moral imperative,” reads the UN statement. “There is also overwhelming evidence that girls’ education, especially at the secondary level, is a powerful transformative force for societies and girls themselves: it is the one consistent positive determinant of practically every desired development outcome, from reductions in mortality and fertility, to poverty reduction and equitable growth, to social norm change and democratization.”
The results will not be immediately apparent, but the international community’s increasing focus on women’s education is sure to lead to new initiatives to bridge yet another gender gap that has divided the world.