Welcome and Overview
For International Day of the Girl, the Working Group on Girls is hosting a town hall meeting on Friday, October 9th, where girl activists, gender equity thought leaders, and United Nations representatives from around the world, come together to discuss progress and gaps around girls rights and articulate the possibilities for realizing gender equality for all girls.
The International Day of the Girl Child focuses attention on the need to address the challenges girls face and to promote girls’ empowerment and the fulfilment of their human rights.
Adolescent girls have the right to a safe, educated, and healthy life, not only during these critical formative years, but also as they mature into women. If effectively supported during the adolescent years, girls have the potential to change the world – both as the empowered girls of today and as tomorrow’s workers, mothers, entrepreneurs, mentors, household heads, and political leaders. An investment in realising the power of adolescent girls upholds their rights today and promises a more equitable and prosperous future, one in which half of humanity is an equal partner in solving the problems of climate change, political conflict, economic growth, disease prevention, and global sustainability.
A panel of Girl Activists like you will be discussing their advocacy work and what equity for girls looks like with policy makers and audience members around the following themes, and we invite you to engage in the dialogue based on the following themes:
● Economic Justice and Rights ○ Female youth aged 15-29 are 3 times more likely than male youth to be outside the labour force and not participating in education. 2 ○ Almost 70% of economically inactive female youth aged 15-29, who are not in education, indicated that they wish to work in the future. 3
● Climate Justice ○ Currently, over half a billion children are living in areas with extremely high levels of flood occurrence, and nearly 160 million live in areas of high or extremely high drought severity. 4 ○ Consequences of disasters such as droughts, floods and storms on women and girls include increased maternal mortality rates and increased child marriage rate.
● Menstrual Equity Up to 500 million girls and women are living each month in period poverty. Due to financial constraints, they lack access to essential tools for menstrual hygiene management (MHM), such as sanitary products and handwashing facilities. 5 ○ When looking at 1,000 teens ages 13 to 19 found 20% — one in five — of teenage girls surveyed can’t afford to purchase menstrual hygiene products. ○ Of those, 25% missed class because they didn’t have access to tampons or pads. 6
● Gender-based Violence ○ Around 120 million girls worldwide (slightly more than 1 in 10) have experienced forced intercourse or other forced sexual acts at some point in their lives. However, girls living in certain parts of the world seem to be at greater risk than others ○ Research has found that girls who have been sexually abused are at higher risk of experiencing intimate partner violence and of being involved, or exploited, in sex work later in life ○ Globally, nearly one in three adolescent girls aged 15 to 19 (84 million) in formal unions have been the victims of any emotional, physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their husbands or partners at some point in their lives. 7