Girls and young women
Girls and young women create especially vulnerable group in society. In both, western and
eastern civilization, they are exposed to many challenges as discrimination, sexual abuse, access to
certain types of education or employment, stereotyping, exclusion and many others. Statistically they
suffer from all these kinds of disadvantages much more often than boys.1
In particular, girls and young women are more underrated in developing societies and I see this
fact as one of the main sources of all the other problems of developing countries. Strong
discrimination against women and their abuse undermine the whole society and its development.
The vicious circle starts from the education and the way of raising girls and young women. Women in
developing countries are less likely to fight back and stand up for their rights, because of the
oppression from the early stages of their lives. The psychological effect of their education determines
all their attitudes during their whole life. If it is managed to better the status of girls and young
women in the developing societies, many other problems could be easily solved. The inequality
causes unbalance which is in the end reflected in poor economic development. The discrimination is
present in the whole range of areas and determines a lot of other factors, thus it is very unlikely that
the developing countries would reach the improvement of their economic conditions without any
improvement of the women’s rights.
Except the general discrimination that girls and young women face in the world, there is
another huge problem that unfortunately does not catch up as much attention. Girls and young
women are in particular victims of armed conflicts in the world and this gender-specific effect of
armed conflict is still rising up. Girls and young women were targeted in tactics of war and sexual
assault has become a weapon. Problems are not only individual sexual assaults on girls and young
women, but organised sexual exploitation, gang rapes, arranged marriages or recruiting girls as child
soldiers. Lack of world awareness on these issues caused that these problems were often ignored
and stayed unsolved. Many UN documents on children neglected the emphasis on young girls and
women in armed conflicts that are the main victims of them, but that on the other side play very
important role in the reinforcement of the society after the conflict. According to Graça Machel study
that monitored the situation in conflict zones, women are very important children’s psychical and
psychological survival during and after armed conflicts. Thus their protection leads to the protection
of the whole balance in the society that is exposed to the armed conflict. Thus women became a
tactical target of special significance if one intends to destroy a culture. Arranged marriages of girls
that were under age had been spread more and more widely especially because of this effect. Girls
were forced to became soldiers’ wives, follow them and serve them. Forced marriages have effect of
sexual exploitation as well as physical exploitation because girls and young women are forced to
serve and take care about their husbands within them. Mostly, girls are forced to move to the other
parts of the country with their new husbands, thus they are dislocated and often forced to stay with
the man even after the armed conflict. All of these facts have lifelong traumatic consequences on
girls and young women.
1
The Situation of Girls and Young Women, Chapter 9, World Youth Report, 2003.
Girls and young women are the cornerstone of the society and they should deserve careful
protection and solution of problems that consider them should be one of the main goals of the
world, because they determine solution of other problems. Thus, do not ignore the most vulnerable
group in our society and bring our attention to their problems, so that they can bring balance to the
world.