Two global challenges have an enormous impact on the lives of millions of young girls and their societies in the developing world: early and forced child marriage (CEFM) and female genital mutilation (FGM).
That was the focal point of the Girl Summit 2014, which I was pleased to attend on July 22 in London. Organized by the U.K. government and co-hosted by UNICEF, the gathering mobilized domestic and international resources to eliminate FGM and CEFM within a generation.
With leading governments, international organizations, civil society partners and advocates, including youth advocates such as Malala, the Summit issued a new 10-point charter on ending FGM and child, early and forced marriage.
These two practices -- which take place in many countries in Africa, South Asia, the Middle East and even in the diaspora of these communities in Europe and North America -- represent, first and foremost, extraordinary violations of girls’ rights. We must do everything possible to make them a distant and bitter relic of human history.
CEFM and FGM also contribute to the continuation of poverty and weak economic growth, maternal and child mortality and morbidity and gender disparity in education.
Staggering dimensions
The global incidence of early and forced marriage is staggering. According to the U.K. government, each year, 14 million girls, or one out of every three in the developing world, are married before their 18th birthday. One out of every nine girls is married by age 15.
There are also about 125 million girls and women alive today who have experienced FGM and an additional 30 million are at risk of being cut over the next 10 years, primarily across almost 30 countries in Africa and the Middle East. FGM results in severe health and psychological consequences for the girls who are required to undergo the procedure, often without anesthetic and in unsanitary conditions.
Education helps reduce FGM and CEFM
As we at the Global Partnership have long noted, FGM and CEFM are also closely tied to whether or not girls get the educations they need. So I wasn’t surprised to hear across the many summit sessions a clear consensus that ensuring access to a quality basic education, particularly in rural areas and particularly for girls, is a central solution to reducing FGM and CEFM.
We know definitively that women with more education are also more empowered to make their own choices about when and whom to marry. As the UNESCO 2013/2014 Education for All Global Monitoring Report notes, if all girls in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia had primary education, child marriage would fall by 14%. Women in India and Pakistan with at least a secondary education are, respectively, 30% and 15% more likely to have a say over their choice of spouse than women without an education.
Also, as UNICEF has reported, research shows that that in most countries where FGM occurs, its prevalence is generally highest among daughters of women with no education and decreases substantially as a mother’s educational level rises.
In spite of promising gains in recent years, too many girls today are prevented from making their own choices, determining their own futures and avoiding violence and exclusion. Poor girls living in remote areas are the most disadvantaged when it comes to education. Girls with disabilities or from ethnic minorities, or those living in emergencies and conflict-affected countries are most likely to be affected.
Pledging to Bring Change
The Global Partnership for Education was among the many organizations and leaders submitting a Commitment for the Girl Summit. In keeping with the Global Partnership’s mandate, we have committed, through our new funding model, to provide strong incentives for countries to collect more and better data about girls’ access to education and their learning outcomes. That’s important because with good data, we can better understand which interventions are bringing about the best outcomes in learning. Where there is learning, girls and women are more likely to be able to speak up for themselves and take control of their own lives.
The Global Partnership also has committed to revise our education sector plan preparation and appraisal guidelines to help countries put in place policies that promote greater gender parity and equality. This means that governments and partners will be encouraged to think about ensuring a safe and protective learning environment, and also about the broader role education can and should play so that both girls and boys have the knowledge and skills to tackle harmful social practices like FGM and CEFM.
We look forward to working with our partners to reduce and eventually eliminate these harmful practices.