WHEN WE EMPOWER GIRLS,OUR COMMUNITY BENEFITS.
Girls have no status, no protection and no prospects in many families and communities – and this is simply the way things are. Inequality is so entrenched that it isn’t even questioned."
As a community we need to understand that when we empower girls, everybody benefits. Girls who are educated, healthy and free can transform their communities and pass on the benefits to their children, and to their children’s children.
Yet the reality is that women are still treated as second-class citizens of this world; girls are almost completely ignored. Girls have no status, no protection and no prospects in many families and communities – and this is simply the way things are. Inequality is so entrenched that it isn’t even questioned.
INVESTING IN GIRLS MEANS ENDING CHILD MARRIAGE
Girls who marry before they turn 18 are more likely to drop out of school, live in poverty, suffer domestic violence, become pregnant before they are ready, and die in childbirth. Marrying too young is a sure way to perpetuate poverty and inequality in a girl’s community.
Child marriage is more than a harmful practice that should be tackled in its own right; it is an entry point to all these other issues. If we want girls to stay in school, to be safe and healthy, to earn their own income and invest back into their families and communities, we must end child marriage.
