Twenty-five years after the historic Beijing women’s conference in China – a milestone in advancing equal rights – violence against women and girls is not only common, but widely accepted, a new UN report revealed on Wednesday.
While there have been remarkable gains for girls in education, little headway has been made to help shape a more equal, less violent environment for them, warned the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), together with UN Women and the non-governmental organization Plan International in their report, A New Era for Girls: Taking stock on 25 years of progress.
The report highlighted that in 2016, women and girls accounted for 70 per cent of detected trafficking victims globally, mostly involving sexual exploitation.
As UNICEF Regional Ambassador, online safety is an issue close to my heart. Experts from across the East Asia have been discussing how we can all work together to make the internet a safer place, and to #EndViolence online. @unicef @UNICEF_EAPRO @unicefkorea pic.twitter.com/JQkppPcmJA
— 최시원 • Siwon Choi (@siwonchoi) February 27, 2020
Moreover, an astonishing one-in-20 girls between the ages of 15 and 19, has experienced rape in her lifetime.
The report has been launched in line with the Generation Equality campaign to open a global conversation for action and accountability on gender equality, and to mark the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.
Girls today are at a startling risk of violence, whether it is in school, at home, or online as well as throughout their communities, which leads to physical, psychological and social consequences.
A New Era for Girls also covers harmful practices, such as child marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM), which continue to disrupt and damage the lives and potential of millions of girls around the world.
According the report, each year 12 million girls are married in childhood, and four million risk FGM.
And girls aged 15-19, are as likely to justify wife-beating, as boys of the same age.
The report noted that in the past 20 years, the number of girls out-of-school has dropped by 79 million and over the last decade, more are actually likely to be in secondary school than boys.
However, it also pointed to negative trends for girls in nutrition and health.
For example, globalization has shifted traditional diets to more processed, unhealthy foods and aggressive marketing techniques targeting children have fuelled consumption, along with sugar-sweetened beverages.
“Access to education is not enough”, maintained the UNICEF chief Henrietta Fore, adding, “we must also change people’s behaviours and attitudes towards girls”.
Meanwhile, concerns are growing over poor mental health, exacerbated in part by the excessive use of digital technology.
A New Era for Girls revealed that suicide is currently the second leading cause of death among adolescent girls in that age bracket, surpassed only by maternal conditions.
Turning to their heightened risk of sexually-transmitted infection, the report found that some 970,000 adolescent girls between the ages of 10 and 19 are living today with HIV – accounting for around three-in-four new infections among adolescents worldwide – as compared to 740,000 girls in 1995.
“True equality will only come when all girls are safe from violence, free to exercise their rights, and are able to enjoy equal opportunities in life”, concluded the UNICEF Executive Director.
