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The UN will mark the first ’International Day of the Girl Child’ today, with a focus on ending child marriages and highlighting challenges in countries like India, Bangladesh and Somalia to combat this fundamental human rights violation that impacts a girl’s life.
“The International Day of the Girl Child readily reflects the need to put girls’ rights at the centre of development,” said Anju Malhotra with the Gender and Rights Section in UNICEF.
“The UN and partners are coming together to show the incredible progress made and to highlight the ongoing challenges,” to end child marriage, which is a fundamental human rights violation that impacts all aspects of a girl’s life, UNICEF said.
The day would focus on the theme of ‘My Life, My Right, End Child Marriage’ and through a series of events and actions scheduled around the world UNICEF aims to draw attention to the critical issue of child marriage.
In partnership with governments, civil society and UN agencies, funds and programmes, UNICEF said it is laying the groundwork to end child marriage globally.
In 2011, 34 country offices reported efforts to address child marriage through social and economic change efforts and legal reform.
In India, one of the countries in the world with the largest number of girls being married before their 18th birthday, child marriage has declined nationally and in nearly all states to 43 per cent in 2007-2008 from 54 per cent in 1992-1993, but the pace of change is slow, UNICEF said.
Diverse experiences to combat child marriage in nations like Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Ethiopia, India, Niger, Senegal and Somalia show how combining legal measures with support to communities, providing viable alternatives – especially schooling – and enabling communities to discuss and reach the explicit, collective decision to end child marriage yield positive results, UNICEF said.
“Child marriage can often result in ending a girl’s education. In communities where the practice is prevalent, marrying a girl as a child is part of a cluster of social norms and attitudes that reflect the low value accorded to the human rights of girls,” Anju Malhotra said.
The proportion of child brides has decreased over the last 30 years but child marriage persists at high rates in several regions of the world, particularly in rural areas and among the poorest.
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