International Day of the Girl
11 October 2017
October 11 is commemorated annually the world over to shine the spotlight on issues of gender inequality facing young girls, as well as their access to human rights. The Day was first commemorated in 2012 and finds its origins in the United Nations (UN), which noted the need to highlight discrimination against girls. According to the UN, there are over one billion girls in the world. This commemoration provides an opportunity for society and organisations to raise awareness about the challenges faced by girls based simply on their gender. This year’s theme is “EmPOWER girls: Before, during and after conflict”.
According to UN Women - the UN organisation dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women - an adolescent girl dies every 10 minutes as a result of violence. This is in the context of humanitarian emergencies during which gender-based violence increases. Girls are subject to sexual and physical abuse, child marriage, exploitation and trafficking. An example of this is the abduction and abuse of Nigerian school girls by Boko Haram. UN Women reports that adolescent girls in conflict zones are 90% more likely to be out of school than their peers in conflict-free zones. We live in a time where conflict exists in various corners of the world and whilst all those affected deserve attention and assistance, the effect of conflict on the girl deserves particular highlighting.
The issues of inequality affecting girls are not limited to conflict in the form of war. The lack of fundamental human rights, or abuses thereof, such as the right to education, nutrition, medical attention, domestic violence, child marriage and in some areas, even Female Genital Mutilation, plague girls even in conflict-free zones.
In South Africa we are not experiencing the quintessential conflict in the form of war, but rather a different - but just as damaging - assault on female bodies. Young girls are not exempt. South Africa experiences the highest rate of femicide in the world, at five times more than the global rate. This fact has been starkly highlighted in the media over the last period, following numerous deaths of young women under the most violent of circumstances. Child rape and mutilation feature daily in our media. This is not to say that this is a new occurrence, but rather, that society has started paying attention. Furthermore, in South Africa a woman is more likely to be murdered by a current or former intimate partner, than at the hands of a stranger (AfricaCheck).