United Nations
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United Nations Commission on the Status of Women
Fifty-fifth session
22 February – 4 March 2011
New York
INTERACTIVE EXPERT PANEL
Review theme: Evaluation of progress in the implementation of the
agreed conclusions on “The elimination of all forms of
discrimination and violence against the girl child”
Keynote statement*
by
SAAD HOURY
Deputy Executive Director
UNICEF
*The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the
United Nations.
United Nations
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United Nations Commission on the Status of Women
Fifty-fifth session
22 February – 4 March 2011
New York
Excellencies, good morning. It is my pleasure to address you today at the start of this session on
eliminating all forms of discrimination and violence against the girl child.
 The Beijing Platform for Action was explicit in its recognition that discrimination and
violence against women begins at the earliest stages of their lives. Girls face violence
and discrimination due both to their sex and age. Many girls bear this discrimination
alongside the disadvantages of poverty, minority status or disability. Girls suffer
violations of commission, such as female infanticide, female genital mutilation and
cutting, rape, domestic violence, commercial sexual exploitation and abuse and child
pornography. They also suffer violations of omission, being denied access to
healthcare, school or adequate nutrition. That these forms of violence against and
neglect of the world’s girls is so common and accepted reflects the discriminatory norms
that persist and reinforce their lower status in societies around the world. It is the world’s
girls who bear the heaviest burden of our failures to secure an equitable path to
development for all.
 The fulfilment of the rights of girls is first and foremost an obligation and moral
imperative, and it is appropriately reflected as such in international law, most notably in
the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination against Women. The Commission on the Status of Women has
always been about women of all ages, including girls, and it was appropriate and timely
that its 51st session in 2007 should focus our attention on the situation of girls. That
session reviewed progress in addressing and promoting girls’ rights since the Beijing
Platform for Action was adopted, and, in its Agreed Conclusions, outlined key actions
governments, international organizations and civil society must take to ensure girls’
rights are upheld.
Excellencies,
 Progress has been made in a number of areas outlined in the Agreed Conclusions over
the past years. For example, national legislation addressing violence against women
and girls is being systematically improved across the world. In Turkey, the reform of
the civil and penal codes criminalized marital rape and repealed suspensions or sentence
reductions given to rapists or abductors who married their victims and committed
‘honour’ crimes. The African Commission on Human and People’s Rights adopted a
protocol requiring governments to combat all forms of discrimination against women
and enact and enforce laws to prohibit all forms of violence against women. These are
just two examples of many.
 Programmes engaging men and boys to end violence against women and girls have
been initiated in many countries, recognizing an essential approach which has also
been the subject of discussion in this Commission. For example, in India, NGOs worked
with local government bodies to foster gender equality and reduce gender-based
violence among 12 to 14-year-old girls and boys as part of the Gender Equity
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New York



Movement in Schools initiative. As a result, more than half of the boys out of the 1200
students involved indicated that they stopped teasing girls and contributed more to
household chores. Another example is the White Ribbon Campaign, through which
boys and men encourage their peers to speak out and take responsibility for helping end
violence against women and girls and promote healthy relationships, and which is now
active in some 60 countries.
The prevalence of FGM/C is declining and progress has been made in criminalizing
this practice. In one approach, the NGO Tostan, has empowered communities to end the
practice within countries throughout Africa. Its Community Empowerment Programme,
working in collaboration with UNICEF and a multitude of development and academic
partners, has led to over 5,000 communities in six countries abandoning FGM/C and
child or forced marriage. Countries such as Ethiopia have established new penalties and
punishments for those who are accomplices as well as those who are directly responsible
for the FGM/C.
The extent of sexual and other forms of violence against women and girls during
conflict has received increased attention, resulting in several key UN Security
Council Resolutions aimed at safeguarding women and girls from sexual violence.
In 2008, the Security Council Resolution 1820 was adopted, in which the Council for the
first time recognized conflict-related sexual violence as a tactic of warfare and a critical
component of the maintenance of peace and security. In 2009, Security Council
Resolution 1888 was adopted, which strengthened tools for implementing Security
Council Resolution 1820, including by calling for the appointment of a Special
Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict to provide
leadership and coordination to the UN Response. In December 2010, the Security
Council broke new ground by unanimously adopting Security Council Resolution 1960,
which is the most robust resolution on sexual violence to date. It provides an enhanced
framework for holding perpetrators accountable, including by establishing monitoring,
analysis and reporting systems to track conflict-related sexual violence. Inter-agency
efforts through UN Action Against Sexual Violence, as well as those of SRSG Margot
Waalstrom, have also been successful in bringing greater international focus on countryspecific situations of sexual violence against women and girls. The impact of these
efforts can be seen beyond the confines of the Security Council, for example in the
recent sentencing of an army colonel in the Democratic Republic of Congo to 20 years in
prison for ordering the rape of women by his troops and for committing the crime
himself. This marks the first time that a commanding officer has been tried for such a
crime in the country.
In education, considerable progress has been made in ensuring that girls are not
disadvantaged in primary education. Approximately two-thirds of countries and
territories reached gender parity in primary education by the MDG target year of 2005,
and the numbers continue to improve. Upgrading school sanitation facilities is an
example of factors that has helped increase girls’ enrolment, since girls are particularly
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22 February – 4 March 2011
New York
likely to drop out of school when toilet and washing facilities are not private, unsafe or
simply unavailable. For example, a school sanitation programme in Alwar District, India,
increased girls’ enrolment by one-third.
However, while the direction of change is to be celebrated, its pace is not. There are numerous
challenges remaining, and which this Commission must continue to be seized of:
 The structural and underlying causes of discrimination against women and girls remain
alive and well, and no country can claim to have truly achieved gender equality.
Patriarchal norms and male dominance are deeply embedded in many traditions, cultures
and societies. Our progress in improved laws, policies and programmes still do not
sufficiently address these root causes of the violence and discrimination that girls face.
 Improved laws to end violence against women and girls and address harmful traditional
practices do not yet enjoy adequate implementation and enforcement. For example,
conviction rates for sexual assault are low throughout the world. In the United States,
the conviction rate is at about 6 per cent when factoring in estimates of unreported rapes.
Systems of implementation require resources and capacities, but also need to be
combined with efforts at the grassroots level if they are to become part of the reality that
girls experience.
 Too often, girls who are victims of violence are being ignored or treated as criminals.
For example, in some cases, victims of ‘honour’ crimes are forced to enter prison or
other custodial facilities, while girls who are victims of trafficking are sometimes
deported, leading to subsequent re-trafficking and exposing them to additional violence
and abuse.
 Despite the growth in services addressing violence against women and girls, they remain
far from meeting the huge needs. This also applies to programmes aimed at engaging
men and boys, which are both too few and too limited in their specific focus on
adolescent boys. Where services exist they are often aimed at women, and not
adequately equipped to deal with the specific needs of girls.
 More generally, we continue to fail adolescent girls specifically, despite the reality that
the discrimination girls face seems to heighten during adolescence. This is not to say
that gender discrimination is a factor even before birth. Gender stereotypes and
inequality are typically introduced early in the life of the child, and the discriminatory
social and cultural norms and practices upon which they are based continue to shape girls
and boys throughout their childhood. However, gender roles develop new aspects and
implications during adolescence, when many girls face new restrictions and limitations
in their freedom of movement, and too often, find themselves prematurely in adult roles
of wife, mother, worker or caretaker, losing the special provisions of childhood. This
affects adolescent girls in all parts of the world. Our failure to realize the rights of
adolescent girls is in many ways the foundation for gender inequality in our societies,
and must be at the heart of the work of the Commission on the Status of Women.
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
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This is borne out by existing data, which show disparities across as an ever widening
number of indicators as girls reach adolescence. For example, children are equally likely
to be registered at birth regardless of sex. Rates of exclusive breastfeeding among infants
are similar for boys and girls in the first months of life. As children grow, the likelihood
of becoming stunted or underweight due to undernutrition is virtually the same for boys
and girls. Boys and girls are equally likely to benefit from malaria prevention
interventions and to receive proper attention for diarrhoea and pneumonia, the two
leading causes of under-five deaths.
However, when children transition to adolescence, gender disparities become
dramatically more marked. Girls are significantly more likely than boys to marry as
children and to begin having sex at a young age. They are also more likely to be
anaemic. Young men are better informed about HIV and AIDS and, although they are
more likely than young women to have higher-risk sex, they are also more likely to
protect themselves with condoms. We can see the consequence of this in sub-Saharan
Africa, where young women are two to four times as likely to be infected with HIV as
young men. These inequalities reside in the minds and attitudes of adolescent girls
themselves. For example, adolescent girls are as likely to justify wife-beating as older
women, reflecting both an increased vulnerability to domestic violence and the extent to
which they have been socialized to accept a second-class status.
As with so many of the issues we discuss in the United Nations, this is also an area
where we would benefit from, and need, better data. However, we must also go beyond
our traditional calls for more and more sex-disaggregated data to also demand that our
data be analyzed to better reveal the situation of girls who experience multiple forms of
discrimination and exclusion. Girls, just like any of us, are not defined solely by their
age and sex. The most disadvantaged girls live with disabilities, live in the poorest
communities, are part of indigenous or minority groups. For example, girls with
disabilities are less likely than boys with disabilities to attend school, and are often the
least likely of all girls to attend school. In Bangladesh, young men aged 15-24 are more
than two times as likely than young women in this age group to have comprehensive
knowledge about AIDS. However, when household income levels are factored in, the
gender gap remains the same among young men and women from the richest households,
but widens significantly among the poorest, with young men almost four times as likely
to have this knowledge as their female counterparts.
Given the opportunity, these girls are a huge resource. We must do better to find ways to
target our data efforts on the poorest girls, girls with disabilities, girls from indigenous or
minority groups. It is increasingly clear that we cannot make development and the
pursuit of the MDGs purely a matter of averages. This is even more true for the pursuit
of the rights of the world’s girls, who deserve to be understood in all the detail and
complexity and specificity of the lives they lead. Our policies and programmes tend to
focus on one aspect of their lives, without taking into account other factors that affect
them at the same time.
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Excellencies,
Allow me to offer some recommendations for your consideration. To address these challenges
and further girls’ rights and empowerment, there are some key actions we must take.
 We must empower girls and enable their role in development and progress, as called for
by this Commission and other bodies including the Committee on the Rights of the
Child. Women must be empowered be role models for girls and advocates for their
rights. Women such as our new colleague in the UN family, Ms. Bachelet, can serve as
examples to girls of what they can achieve and create the path for a whole generation of
female leaders.
 We need to do more to engage boys and men in our efforts for gender equality both
because it is their duty and because it is in their interests. Gender equality can only be
achieved by working on both sides of the equation. Boys have a right to be socialized,
educated and empowered themselves from an early age to reject discrimination and work
alongside girls and women as champions of gender equality. This does not mean
ignoring that boys can be the victims of violence and bias themselves. Gender
discrimination is not the exclusive preserve of women and girls, even if they suffer its
effect disproportionately at the global level. Instead it means that men, women, girls and
boys are all entitled to enjoy the benefits of, are stakeholders in, and have a part to play,
in the achievement of a gender equal world.
 We must go beyond policies and programmes targeted at women and girls as defined
purely by their sex, to policies and programmes that recognize and respond to the
multiple forms of discrimination that girls in their multiple and complex realities face. It
is not only that girls need to be at the centre of our efforts, but that the diversity of their
circumstances be better understood and appreciated. Part of respecting girls as human
beings with rights is recognizing the realities of their lives, which may not fit neatly in
the distinct categories of our development programming practices.
 We must place increased emphasis on the rights of adolescent girls. Not only is this our
obligation, but evidence is clear that educated, healthy and skilled adolescent girls are
key to economic development and contribute to poverty eradication. We must educate
adolescent girls, particularly ensuring their successful transition to secondary education;
improve their access to age-appropriate health and nutrition information and services;
protect them from all forms of gender-based violence, abuse and exploitation and ensure
their access to justice; promote their participation and leadership; and ensure they are at
the heart of our policies and programmes.
 While we should continue to strengthen laws for the rights of girls, we must also become
better at looking at the same time to address the community level, and do more to bring
about social change and transform power relations. Without addressing the root causes of
gender inequality, we cannot hope to achieve our collective obligation to protect and
fulfil girls’ rights. We need to better understand of the role of social norms and how they
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affect the decision-making processes of individuals, families and communities, and
design our policies and strategies based on that understanding.
Excellencies,
 UNICEF has spoken recently about the imperative that our ambitions place at their heart
not simply that we see progress towards the Millennium Development Goals, but further
that such progress be enjoyed equally and fairly by all. There are few areas where that
imperative is more real and urgent than in ending discrimination and violence against
girls and women. It represents one of the deepest and most entrenched inequities of our
times, and is why the work of this Commission, on this theme in particular, is among the
most important that this United Nations undertakes. Non-discrimination is the right of
every girl and woman, and the interest and duty of us all. We look forward to a rich and
valuable discussion that takes a further step towards a world where girls can live without
fear of violence and discrimination and with confidence and dignity.
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Annex
Interactive dialogue on the review theme
“The elimination of all forms of discrimination and violence against the girl child”
25 February 2011
10 am to 1 pm
Paper submitted by
Gender and Rights Unit
Gender, Rights and Civic Engagement Section
Division of Policy and Practice
UNICEF
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I.Introduction
On the occasion of its fifty-fifth session, the Commission on the Status of Women will review
progress in the implementation of the Agreed Conclusions on the “Elimination of discrimination
and violence against the girl child”, adopted by the Commission at its fifty-first session in 2007.
The conclusions urged Governments, entities of the United Nations system, financial
institutions and civil society to carry out a set of measures to advance the rights of the girl
child1. This paper provides an input into this year’s discussion by identifying progress achieved
and gaps and challenges encountered. It highlights good practices and strategies for further
and accelerated implementation of the agenda to address discriminatory practices and violence
against the girl child.
The Beijing Platform for Action is explicit in its recognition that discrimination and violence
against women begins at the earliest stages of their lives. Girls face violence and
discrimination due to both their sex and age. Many girls experience this discrimination
alongside the disadvantages of poverty, minority status or disability. Girls suffer violations,
such as female infanticide, female genital mutilation and cutting (FGM/C), rape, domestic
violence, commercial sexual exploitation and abuse, and child pornography. They also suffer
violations of omission, such as being denied access to healthcare, school or adequate nutrition.
That these forms of violence and neglect of girls are so common and accepted reflects the
discriminatory norms that persist and reinforce girl’s lower status in societies around the world.
It is the world’s girls who bear the heaviest burden of failures to secure an equitable path to
development for all.
The fulfilment of the rights of girls is first and foremost an obligation and moral imperative, and
is appropriately reflected as such in international law, most notably in the Convention on the
Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women. The Commission on the Status of Women has focused on women of all ages,
including girls, and the 51st session was dedicated to the situation of girls.
The session reviewed progress achieved in addressing and promoting girls’ rights since the
Platform was adopted, and, in the Agreed Conclusions, outlined key actions that governments,
international organizations and civil society must take to ensure girls’ rights are fulfilled. In
particular, the Commission voiced a concern that despite achievements, discrimination against
girls continues. Further, it emphasized that empowering girls requires the active support and
engagement of their parents, families, boys and men as well as the wider community. It also
stressed the importance of including girls as active partners in decision-making processes that
affect their lives. The Agreed Conclusions called for governments to review and revise laws and
regulations that allow for the continuation of discriminatory practices; explore and devise the
necessary measures, including international and national monitoring systems to enforce the
1
The measures called for action in the following areas: poverty reduction, education and training, health, HIV/AIDS, child labour,
humanitarian assistance to girls, violence and discrimination, trafficking, girls in high-risk-situations, migration, empowering girls,
armed conflict, gender stereotypes, gender mainstreaming, participation of girls, and data collection.
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implementation of laws and policies; and ensure the required resource mobilization and
budgetary provisions for the girl child.
II.Developments and specific steps based on the Agreed Conclusions
Progress has been made in a number of areas outlined in the Agreed Conclusions over the
past years. This includes efforts to strengthen legislative and policy frameworks as well as
development programmes that address the specific vulnerabilities of girls.
National legislation addressing violence against women and girls is being systematically
improved across the world. For example, in Turkey, the reform of the civil and penal codes
criminalized marital rape and repealed suspensions or sentence reductions given to rapists or
abductors who married their victims or tried to justify their crimes as having been committed to
“defend the family’s honour”.2 The African Commission on Human and People’s Rights
adopted a protocol which calls for governments to combat all forms of discrimination against
women and to enact and enforce laws to prohibit all forms of violence against women.3
Laws related to trafficking have also been enacted in several countries. Efforts are being
increased to scale-up national policing as well as intergovernmental collaboration and
cooperation to monitor and address illegal cross-border movements. For example, a draft law
criminalizing human trafficking was introduced in Guinea-Bissau’s National Assembly,
representing an important step towards protecting children and women from trafficking. The
World Tourism Organization has created a global code of conduct to increase protection of
children from sex tourism.4 At the local level, hotlines, and safe houses have been introduced to
address the needs of vulnerable and victimized children, including girls, in many countries.
Programmes engaging men and boys to end violence against women and girls have been
strengthened and initiated in many countries, recognizing an essential approach which has also
been the subject of discussion in the Commission on the Status of Women. In India, NGOs
worked with local government bodies to foster gender equality and reduce gender-based
violence among 12 to 14-year-old girls and boys as part of the Gender Equity Movement in
Schools initiative. As a result of the programme, more than half of the boys, out of the 1200
students involved, indicated that they stopped teasing girls and contributed more to household
chores. The White Ribbon Campaign has seen boys and men encourage their peers to speak
out and take responsibility for helping end violence against women and girls, and promote
healthy relationships. It has now spread to some 60 countries and is the largest such initiative
in the world.
2
UNICEF: Legislative Reform on Selected Issues on Anti-Gender Discrimination and Anti-Domestic Violence: The Impact on
Children. 2009. P. 48.
3
African Commission on Human and People’s Rights: http://www.achpr.org/english/_info/women_en.html (accessed 15 February
2011)
4
UNICEF: From Invisible to Indivisible: Promoting and Protecting the Rights of the Girl Child to be Free from Violence, p. 51
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Progress has also been observed in reducing the practice of FGM/C in several countries
through using a mix of strategies. In Ethiopia, for example, in 2005, the country’s new Criminal
Code came into effect with detailed provisions on FGM/C, including penalties and punishments
for those who are accomplices as well as those who are directly responsible for the crime.5 In
Senegal and Egypt, civil society organizations have addressed the issue through a process of
community engagement and the mobilization of traditional and faith-based leaders, to foster
collective abandonment.
The extent of sexual and other forms of violence against women and girls during conflict has
received increased attention, resulting in several key UN Security Council Resolutions 1820,
1888 and 1960 aimed at safeguarding women and girls. Inter-agency efforts through UN Action
Against Sexual Violence, as well as those of SRSG Margot Waalstrom, have also been
successful in bringing greater international focus on country-specific situations of sexual
violence against women and girls. The impact of these efforts can be seen beyond the confines
of the Security Council, for example in the recent sentencing of an army colonel in the
Democratic Republic of Congo to 20 years in prison for ordering the rape of women by his
troops and for committing the crime himself. This marks the first time that a commanding officer
has been tried for such a crime in the country.
Considerable progress has also been made in ensuring that girls are not disadvantaged in
primary education. Approximately two-thirds of countries and territories reached gender parity
in primary education by the MDG target year of 2005.6 Upgrading school sanitation facilities has
helped increase girls’ enrolment, since girls are particularly likely to drop out of school when
toilet and washing facilities are unavailable, lack privacy or are unsafe. For example, a school
sanitation programme in Alwar District, India, increased girls’ enrolment by one-third. Namibia
recently amended its education policy to ensure continued education for pregnant teenage girls;
the earlier policy stipulated a twelve month suspension for the girls but did not take the same
punitive steps against boys involved.7
III.Challenges
While the direction of change is positive, the pace of progress remains slow. There remain a
number of challenges to address.
Structural and other causes of unequal power relations between women and men and
girls and boys are not being adequately addressed, although this is crucial with regard to
eliminating discrimination and violence against girls. Patriarchal norms and male dominance
are deeply embedded in many traditions, cultures and societies. Progress in improved laws,
UNICEF and European Union, “The Dynamics of Social Change: Towards the Abandonment of Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting
in Five African Countries” Innocenti Insight, 2010, p. 25.
6
UNICEF, Progress for Children: Achieving the MDGs with Equity, Number 9, September 2010, p. 20.
7
Rushnan Murtaza, UNICEF Namibia, Development of national policies to address specific vulnerabilities of adolescent girls
(including the OVC Policy and Learner Pregnancy Policy). Paper presented at the conference “Adolescent Girls-Cornerstone of
Society: Building Evidence and Policies for Inclusive Societies, New York, 26-28 April 2010.
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policies and programmes still does not sufficiently address these root causes of the violence
and discrimination that girls face.
Improved laws to end violence against women and girls and address harmful traditional
practices are not yet adequately implemented and enforced. For example, conviction rates
for sexual assault are low throughout the world. In the United States, the conviction rate is at
about 6 per cent when factoring in estimates of unreported rapes.8 Systems of implementation
require resources and capacities, but also need to be combined with efforts at the grassroots
level if they are to become part of the reality that girls experience.
Too often, girls who are victims of violence are doubly victimized by either being ignored
or treated as criminals. For example, in some cases, survivors of sexual abuse are forced to
enter prison or other custodial facilities, and thus are further victimized rather than protected.
Similarly, girls who are victims of trafficking are sometimes deported, leading to subsequent retrafficking and exposing them to additional violence and abuse.
While programmes addressing violence against women and girls have been diversified,
their scope and effectiveness remain limited. Despite some progress, the impact of
programmes engaging men and boys to end violence against women and girls remains minimal
and few of these programmes target the specific vulnerabilities of adolescent girls, or explicitly
focus on behaviour change among adolescent boys.9 Sexual assault services rarely target
young girls. Most are oriented towards women and older adolescent girls, and do not
sufficiently address the needs of younger girls and girls with disabilities. In addition,
reintegration programmes in post-conflict countries often exclude girls who were associated
with fighting forces.
There is an insufficient focus on the needs and rights of adolescent girls, despite the
reality that the discrimination girls face seems to heighten during adolescence. Gender
discrimination is a factor even before birth; gender stereotypes and inequality are typically
introduced early in the life of the child, and the discriminatory social and cultural norms and
practices upon which they are based continue to shape girls and boys throughout their
childhood. However, gender roles develop new aspects and implications during adolescence,
when many girls face new restrictions and limitations in their freedom of movement, and too
often, find themselves prematurely in adult roles of wife, mother, worker or caretaker, losing the
special provisions of childhood. This affects adolescent girls in all parts of the world.
Existing data shows disparities across an ever widening number of indicators as girls reach
adolescence. For example, children are equally likely to be registered at birth regardless of
sex. Rates of exclusive breastfeeding among infants are similar for boys and girls in the first
months of life. As children grow, the likelihood of becoming stunted or underweight due to
undernutrition is virtually the same for boys and girls. Boys and girls are equally likely to benefit
from malaria prevention interventions and to receive proper attention for diarrhoea and
pneumonia, the two leading causes of under-five deaths.
8
9
UNICEF: From Invisible to Indivisible: Promoting and protecting the right of the girl child to be free from violence, p. 34
Ibid, p. 32
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However, when children transition to adolescence, gender disparities become dramatically
more marked. Adolescent girls often receive less nutritious food and are more likely to be
anaemic. They are also significantly more likely than boys, to be forced into child marriage or
early sexual debuts. Adolescent boys are better informed about HIV and AIDS and, although
they are more likely than girls to have higher-risk sex, they are also more likely to protect
themselves with condoms, while girls are unable to negotiate safe sex, thus increasing their
vulnerability .For example, in sub-Saharan Africa, young women are two to four times as likely
to be infected with HIV as young men.
There is a need for better data on the situation of girls. It is necessary to go beyond sexdisaggregated data to also analyze data better to reveal the multiple forms of
discrimination and exclusion girls face. Girls often face multiple discriminations from living
with disabilities, living in the poorest communities, or belonging to indigenous or minority
groups, among other factors. For example, girls with disabilities are less likely than boys with
disabilities to attend school, and are often the least likely of all girls to attend school. In
Bangladesh, while young men aged 15-24 are more than two times as likely as young women
in this age group to have comprehensive knowledge about AIDS. However, when household
income levels are factored in, the gender gap remains the same among young men and women
from the richest households, but widens significantly among the poorest, with young men
almost four times as likely to have this knowledge as their female counterparts.
IV. Good practice and strategies for further accelerated implementation
Addressing these challenges and furthering girls’ rights and empowerment requires concerted
action of governments, development agencies, non-governmental organizations, and members
of civil society, with active engagement of girls and boys, men and women.
Girls should be empowered and their participation and agency encouraged,
as called for by the Commission on the Status of Women and other bodies including the
Committee on the Rights of the Child. It is important to recognize girls as key actors in
promoting gender equality and their own empowerment. One example is the “Ishraq”
(“Sunlight”) programme in rural provinces of Upper Egypt, which offers a curriculum to enhance
literacy and life skills for girls. As part of this initiative, girls also actively participate in sports in
an effort to promote self-confidence and a sense of empowerment. Evaluation has shown its
positive effects on delaying the age of marriage, and increasing opposition to FGM/C and other
harmful traditional practices.10 Women also have a critical role to play in leading the way for
girls, as role models and as advocates for their rights. Women leaders in communities and
societies around the world can serve as examples to girls of what they can achieve and can
create a path for the next generation of leaders.
10
Population Council (2007): http://www.popcouncil.org/projects/40_IshraqSafeSpacesGirls.asp (accessed 19 February 2011)
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It is important to engage boys and men in the cause to end violence and discrimination
against girls. Gender equality can only be achieved by working both with girls and women and
with boys and men. It is necessary to educate boys from an early age to reject inequitable
power relations in society and to work alongside girls and women as champions of gender
equality. At the same time, it is important to recognize that boys are also victims of violence
and bias themselves, and their needs and rights must be addressed. Better understanding is
required of how boys experiences relate to the perpetration of gender-based violence and
perpetuation of gender inequality later on in their lives. Promising initiatives have been in
observed in several countries. In South Africa, UNICEF partnered with Sonke Gender Justice to
mobilize men as peer educators with the aim of addressing violence against women. Using
digital media, Sonke Gender Justice works with school-aged boys and girls to improve their
understanding of gender issues.11 A programme run by the Mother Child Education Foundation
(ACEV) in Turkey uses participatory and face-to-face methods to encourage behaviour change
in fathers so that they build healthy relationships with, and are more involved in the care of,
their children. To date, the programme has been implemented in twenty provinces and reached
approximately 32,000 fathers and children.12
Inclusive policies and programmes to address the multiple forms of discrimination that
girls face must be pursued. Part of respecting girls as human beings with rights is recognizing
the realities of their lives. Programmes must take a holistic approach to address the full range
of discrimination a girl may face to effectively protect her rights. In the Education Programme of
the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), BRAC’s 34,000 non-formal schools
enrol over a million students, mostly girls. The organization has pioneered flexible approaches
to offer primary education to disadvantaged rural children, especially girls, from conservative
communities. Its approaches are being adopted in government schools in Bangladesh as well
as being tested in twelve other countries, including Afghanistan, where BRAC runs more than
90 schools for adolescent girls in rural Afghanistan.13
Increased emphasis must be placed on the rights of adolescent girls, who face increased
discrimination at this stage of their lives. Evidence shows that educated, healthy and skilled
adolescent girls will help build a better future, advance social justice, support economic
development and contribute to eradicating poverty. Adolescent girls must have access to
quality education, particularly ensuring their transition to secondary education; improved access
to age-appropriate health and nutrition information and services; protection from all forms of
gender-based violence, abuse and exploitation and access to justice; promotion of their
participation and leadership; and no longer be invisible in policies and programmes.14 The
Kishori Abhijan programme in Bangladesh is an example of a programme promoting the rights
of adolescent girls. It targeted approximately 600,000 adolescent girls, as well as boys and
parents, with the aim of increasing knowledge, improving attitudes and promoting behavior
change in relation to early marriage, dowry, marriage registration, birth registration, child rights
11
UNICEF South Africa: Engaging Men and Boys. http://www.unicef.org/southafrica/protection_4711.html (accessed 19 February
2011)
12
ACEV : Father support program. http://www.acev.org/educationdetail.php?id=20&lang=en (accessed 19 February 2011)
13
UNICEF ROSA and UNGEI, Educating Girls in South Asia: Promising Approaches, 2006, p. 32.
14
ILO, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNICEF, UNIFEM (now part of UN Women), WHO, Accelerating Efforts to Advance the Rights of
Adolescent Girls: A Joint UN Statement, 2010.
14
United Nations
Nations Unies
United Nations Commission on the Status of Women
Fifty-fifth session
22 February – 4 March 2011
New York
and HIV and AIDS. The programme increased girls’ income generating opportunities, improved
their school enrolment rates, and lowered marriage rates, especially among young girls aged
12-14.15
It is also necessary to support social change and transformation of power relations. A
better understanding of the role of social norms and how they affect the decision-making
processes of individuals, families and communities to inform policies and strategies and to
scale up interventions is an important complement to higher level initiatives such as legislative
reform. The NGO Tostan has been successful in empowering communities to abandon FGM/C
within countries throughout Africa. The organization has developed and refined its Community
Empowerment Programme in collaboration with UNICEF and a multitude of development and
academic partners. As a result of these efforts, over 5,000 communities in six countries have
abandoned FGM/C and child or forced marriage to date.16
It is not only important that progress be made towards achieving the Millennium Development
Goals, but further that such progress be enjoyed equally and fairly by all. There are few areas
where that imperative is more real and urgent than in ending discrimination and violence
against girls and women. It represents one of the deepest and most entrenched inequities of
our times, and the work of the Commission on the Status of Women on this theme in particular,
is among the most important that the United Nations undertakes. Non-discrimination is the right
of every girl and woman. It is the interest and duty of us all to work to fulfil this right, with a
vision towards a world where girls can live without fear of violence and discrimination and with
confidence and dignity.
15
UNICEF 2008: Kishori Abhijan – Report on Baseline Findings 2007: Empowerment of Adolescents Project. P.5
16
UNICEF. (2008). Long-term evaluation of the Tostan Programme in Senegal: Kolda, Thies and Fatick Regions. Section of
Statistics and Monitoring, Division of Policy and Practice. New York, NY: UNICEF.
15