On the occasion of the celebration of International Girl's DayYesterday we have been invited by the International Plan, organization for the promotion and protection of children's rights, to the presentation of the 7th Report on the State of the World's Girls 2013: “For Being a Girl: At double risk: adolescent girls and disasters”.
We attended the event to tell you first hand the harsh reality that girls live in developing countries. The data is really shocking. Atrocities and constant violations of their rights just because they are girls, not to mention that they are the ones that stop worse when a disaster happens. Then a slap of reality.
More than a quarter of girls and adolescents in developing countries who have experienced disasters have suffered sexual abuse and violence during and after the emergency.
150 million girls have suffered rape or an act of sexual violence in the world.
Women and girls are 14 times more likely than men to die in a disaster.
There are 65 million girls who do not attend school worldwide, and one in five are denied access to education because of their daily reality of poverty, discrimination and violence.
28 million children outside the school system live in emergency or conflict contexts.
Girls and adolescents are more likely to drop out of school when a disaster occurs and those who are less likely to return later.
Every 3 seconds a girl is forced to marry before age 15, in some cases up to 5 years. They are sold by their parents and given to men who mistreat them.
Also forced early marriage is enhanced when there is a disaster because it constitutes an economic outlet.
Girls eat less than their siblings when food is scarce.
If we ask girls in Africa what makes them happy, almost all of them respond "go to school".
How do you stay with this hard setback of reality? Sometimes it seems that we have become so numb that our gaze does not go beyond what happens in our comfortable first world. In these countries, girls are invisible, victims of terrible situations, forced to work and prostitution, separated and discriminated against because of their gender.
At least one good news is that the Congress of Deputies has unanimously approved a petition yesterday so that in 2014 the United Nations will enact a resolution to eradicate forced child marriage.
Even so, there is still much, but much to do for girls in the world. Protect them, provide them access to education and participate in decision making These are three keys that will allow you to change your childhood. And in that we all have to see, we cannot look the other way.
