पूर्वा चतुर्वेदी
International Day of the Girl Child is celebrated annually on 11 October to highlight and draw attention towards the challenges that girls’ face. It is also necessary to focus on their human rights and empowerment. But with time, their situation changed drastically. Conservative practices like child marriage, sati system, dowry system, female foeticide, etc. became prevalent. Due to this, girls were being denied from rights like education, nutrition, legal rights and medicine. The Indian government is also working in this direction and is implementing various schemes.
History :
World Conference on Women took place in Beijing in 1995 where countries unanimously adopted the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. It was the most progressive blueprint for advancing not only the rights of women but also for girls. This declaration is the first to specifically call out girl’s rights. United Nations General Assembly on 19 December, 2011 adopted a resolution 66/170 to declare 11 October as the International Day of the Girl Child.
International Day of the Girl Child :
Its main objective is to empower women and help them to get their rights so that they can face the challenges all over the world and meet their needs. At the same time, spreading awareness about eliminating gender abnormalities against girls around the world.
Background :
International Day of the Girl increases awareness of issues faced by girls around the world. Many global development plans do not include or consider girls, and their issues become “invisible”. More than 62 million girls around the world had no access to education, as of c. 2014, according to USAID. Worldwide and collectively, girls ages 5 to 14 spend more than 160 million hours more on household choresthan boys of the same age do. Globally, one in four girls are married before age 18.
