New era for girls: Taking stock of 25 years of progress

Laylee Moshiri & Delphine Serumaga

As we celebrate International Women’s Day today, we must turn our attention to the 1,1 billion girls under the age of 18 living in various parts of the world.

They are our daughters, sisters, nieces, cousins, school and teammates, neighbours and friends.

Today, like most people, girls’ lives are better than they were only 25 years ago.

Many young women in their 20s and 30s today were girls when the adoption of the world’s blueprint for gender equality was formed in the mid-1990s.

Girls have become trailblazers and are taking charge of their future like never before.

From leading the fight against climate change; stopping child marriages; demanding improved menstrual hygiene management; excelling in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, to speaking up against violence against girls and women, among many other areas.

It is important to always remember that girls will eventually grow to become women.

Therefore, a comprehensive and transformative global agenda for the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls is important.

But a new report by UNICEF, UN Women and Plan International, titled “A New Era for Girls: Taking Stock of 25 Years of Progress”, shows progress remains uneven, particularly across regions.

It notes that more girls are going to school than ever before, but that violence against girls is not only common but accepted.

The report points to concerning negative trends for girls in nutrition and health, concerns about poor mental health, and that girls remain at high risk of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV.

In 1995, the world adopted the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action — the most comprehensive policy agenda for gender equality — with the vision of ending discrimination against women and girls. Countries committed towards a more equal and less violent world for women and girls.

While there have been overall advances for women and girls, progress has been unacceptably slow and we need to avoid any reversal of the gains made.

Encouragingly, since 1995 girls are living eight years longer, 79 million less girls are out of school and many more are literate, fewer girls are getting married or becoming mothers and more girls are acquiring key foundational skills for lifelong success.

But girls still fall behind in many areas of society, including in Zimbabwe.

The 2019 Zimbabwe Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) has revealed many areas of concern such as an increase in child marriages, with 5 percent of girls under 15 and 33 percent of girls under 18 getting married.

Nearly a quarter of girls in Zimbabwe are becoming mothers before they reach the age of 18 and there are many other areas where a Zimbabwean girl faces major challenges and dangers in her life.

These figures are consistent with trends in this region. Girls in sub-Saharan Africa continue to face considerable challenges.

The region has the lowest school completion rates for girls, worldwide, and although the region has seen a 22 percent decline in the adolescent birth rate between 1995 and 2000.

Adolescent girls aged 15 to 19 continue to suffer from the highest rates of early childbearing, at 103 births per 1 000 adolescent girls.

Sub-Saharan Africa also has the highest levels of child marriage in the world now and is home to the largest number of HIV-positive adolescents worldwide.

Four times as many adolescent girls are newly infected with HIV than adolescent boys, yet less than a third of girls aged 15-19 have comprehensive knowledge of HIV.

The list goes on. They are exposed to violence in every space — in the home, classroom and community. They have less access to basic health services, and less access to safe water.

Deep-rooted drivers of abuse persist, and the rapid advancement of technology has opened up new digital spaces where women are being threatened, intimidated and harassed online.

Mental health and suicide rates are high and in many parts of the world they lack access to the technology and skills that are transferable to the workplace.

No matter where a girl lives, she is at high risk and disadvantaged.

Girls have the right to expect more. The report outlines that the realities they face today, in contexts of technological change and humanitarian emergencies, are both remarkably different from 1995 and more of the same — with violence, institutionalised biases, poor learning and life opportunities, and multiple inequalities unresolved.

There are major breakthroughs still to be made.

Empowering the world’s 600 million adolescent girls must be our special focus.

We know that targeted investments in adolescent girls not only improve their lives, they also yield returns across generations, boosting economic growth and improving the well-being of children, families and communities worldwide.

From individual decisions about work or family life, to collective action for a better world, women and girls must be heard and heeded.

The analysis highlights that girls with a secondary education are three times less likely to marry as children than girls with no education.

Access to menstrual hygiene information and supplies can help girls stay in school and learn, while safe and appropriate sanitation facilities reduce their risk of violence. Since violence can be a reason to keep girls at home and away from school, curtailing it not only supports their education, it reduces the exposure to HIV and adolescent pregnancy that can result from violence.

Targeting these obstacles will not only spur progress toward Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 — Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women and Girls — it will also bring the world closer to achieving many other SDGs, particularly on health, education, poverty eradication, zero hunger, water and sanitation, reduced inequalities and peace and justice for all, amongst others.

Negative, diminished ideas of women and girls are one of the greatest barriers for gender equality.

By addressing it, we can give every child — every girl — a fair chance in life. The promise to achieve gender equality for all women and girls stands and falls with empowering and guaranteeing the rights of those who have been pushed to the margins.

So, what must be done, and what is being called for?

To accelerate progress towards gender equality, adolescent girls and young women need to be involved in the decision making, as well as in the designing of solutions, that impact their future.

Adolescent girls themselves represent a tremendous opportunity for change, and today, they are leading and organising global movements — on digital platforms and on the streets — to show their power as change-makers.

The global community must now listen and actively engage girls’ voices, opinions and ideas in dialogues, platforms and processes that relate to their bodies, communities, education and futures.

Investments must be made in policy and programmes that accelerate progress for and with adolescent girls aligned to today’s world reality.

This includes their skills development for the fourth industrial revolution that is defined by technology and innovation, and a generational movement to end gender-based violence and child marriage.

In addition, investments must be made in the production, analysis and use of high-quality age and sex-disaggregated data as well as research in areas where knowledge is limited, such as gender-based violence, 21st century skills acquisition, adolescent nutrition and mental health.

It is encouraging to see, in Zimbabwe, many empowered, confident and educated girls taking the stage at the recent Africa Regional Forum for Sustainable Development in Victoria Falls.

At the event, 17-year old Junior Parliamentarian, Vanessa Chivise, told an all-male panel of various ministers from around Africa that: “Today I want to say to every woman in here, let’s take . . .  Let’s take opportunities like Amina Mohammed (UN Deputy Secretary-General) said, ‘let’s take them because if we keep asking for them we will be denied.’”

It was a powerful message, made by an empowered girl.

Back in 1995, nearly 64 million girls were born in the year the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action was adopted — beginning their lives as the global community committed to improving their rights.

As the report emphasises, in 2020, nearly 68 million girls are expected to be born.

“The global community needs to listen and develop solutions with girls at the centre so all girls, including those most marginalised, can move from dreaming to achieving,” the report states.

“Girls are rights holders and equal partners in the fight for gender equality. They represent a tremendous engine for transformational change towards gender equality.

“They deserve the full support of the global community to be empowered to successfully transition to adulthood with their rights intact, able to make their own choices and with the social and personal assets acquired to live fulfilled lives.”

Finally, development resources devoted specifically to gender equality currently stand at less than 5 percent, therefore commitments to gender equality requires a greater share of development funding from governments, the development community and the private actor.

 

Laylee Moshiri is UNICEF representative in Zimbabwe and Delphine Serumaga is United Nations Women Zimbabwe Country Representative.