At the UNWomen 20th anniversary celebration of the Beijing Platform for Action this week Hillary Clinton said that “Twenty years ago, declaring that women’s rights are human rights was considered ground-breaking – thankfully it’s now routine.” However, it was the question of a bright young 14-year-old girl from Canada that I met at the Girls Advocacy Round Table that got me thinking more:
“Can you tell me what happened? From the ambition in the BfA 20 years ago to the disappointing Political Declaration of this week and the Working Methods that are under threat as well?”
And I don’t have the answers. I might philosophize
on how the world has developed from the optimism after the fall of the Berlin
Wall to the fear that we allow ourselves to be captured in after 9/11 and the
current state of affairs with terrorist attacks abundant. But no matter how you
analyze the history of the mindset of the world, the sad reality is that it is
still necessary to rally for the rights of women and girls. So it’s one thing
to have the phrase women ánd girls in
the Political Declaration, a bright spot in the otherwise disappointing text,
it’s another to bring about the much needed change.
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| Nathalie van Dijk, Plan Netherlands |
A disturbing statistic is that suicide is the
leading cause of death for girls aged 15-19 globally, with evidence suggesting
that discrimination, trauma abuse, relationship conflict, social isolation,
barriers to accessing health care and economic marginalization, all of which
affect large proportions of adolescent girls, increase the risk of suicide.
Adolescent girls also have higher rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm and
suicide attempts than boys. The second leading death cause in this age group is
maternal mortality. 70.000 adolescents in developing countries die annually of
causes related to pregnancy. If we widen the age range to 10-19 another leading
death cause is violence. An estimated 150 million girls under age 18 have
experienced rape or other forms of sexual violence. Approximately 15 million
girls are married every year before they reach 18.
It is 2015 and it is unacceptable that girls are
still faced with such enormous barriers to their development. It’s unacceptable
and girls know it. The good news is that some of them have managed to overcome
all sorts of difficulty in their lives, and are now becoming vocal about it in
order to stand up for their rights and that of their peers.
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| Plan International youth delegate, Yulisa |
Take for instance Plan-supported youth delegate
Patricia, 16, from Kenya. Her life changed suddenly in 2007, when she was
eight years old. Waking up one day to discover she was completely blind,
Patricia spent the next three years hidden from her community, with only her
mother to keep her company. Patricia’s father abandoned the family, including
her four other siblings, unable to accept his eldest daughter’s
disability. While Patricia was
eventually able to return to school, she continued to face discrimination in
her community, and narrowly avoided abuse and sexual violence on a number of
different occasions. Despite all of this, Patricia has managed to use her
education not only to empower herself, but to speak out for other girls in her
country facing discrimination.
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| Patricia |
And here she is, in New York City, speaking at numerous side-events at the CSW59 and leaving her audiences baffled with her eloquence when she speaks “If girls are educated we can depend on ourselves and make a change in this beautiful world” or “I have to stand strongly on behalf of other disabled children and advocate for their rights because they have been forgotten by their government and the society too.” She is telling world leaders that “disability is not inability. It is my high time and your high time to work together as one in this beautiful world to make sure that the rights of girls with disability are being respected by everybody.” And she concludes sharp-witted “People should listen to girls because after all, I could be the next president!”
It’s 2015 and we have the unique opportunity to turn the world around for the better. Adolescent girls have valuable insights, energy and innovation, and should therefore be part of the design implementation and monitoring of policies and practices that aims to bring about sustainable development. It is time to give women and girls the opportunities to influence decisions that impact their lives, both in the public and private spheres.
=Nathalie van Dijk, Plan Netherlands=
Plan Netherlands is a member of WO=MEN Dutch Gender
Platform
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