The Unfinished Business of Girls' Rights
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Because I am a Girl THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S GIRLS 2015 The Unfinished Business of Girls’ Rights 1 2 THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S GIRLS Because I am a Girl THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S GIRLS 2015 The Unfinished Business of Girls’ Rights S ICTURE P S ANO P Patna, Bihar, India. SPAULL/ JON 3 Acknowledgements This report was made possible with the contributions and advice of many people and organisations. With special thanks to all those who wrote articles, poems and stories for the 2015 report: Sally Armstrong Chernor Bah President Jimmy Carter Imtiaz Dharker Julia Gillard Anita Haidary Joanne Harris Liya Kebede Graça Machel Katrine Marçal Catalina Ruiz Navarro Indra Nooyi Mariane Pearl Nawal El Saadawi Bukky Shonibare Girls Report Editorial Board: Sarah Hendriks – Chair, Director of Gender Equality and Social Inclusion, Plan International Sharon Goulds – Editor and Project Manager of the Girls’ Report series Adam Short – Head of Advocacy, Plan International Jacqui Gallinetti – Director of Research and Knowledge Management, Plan International Lucero Quiroga – Gender Advisor, consultant for Plan International Executive Group: Nigel Chapman CEO, Plan International Rosemary McCarney CEO, Plan International Canada Tanya Barron CEO, Plan International UK Reference Group – Plan International: Rosanna Viterri, Kanwal Ahluwalia, Alex Munive, Tanya Cox, Rashid Javed, Kristy Payne, Carla Jones, Sara Osterlund, Elena Ahmed, Stephanie Conrad and Keshet Dovrat. Special thanks to: Nikki van der Gaag, author of six of the Girls’ Reports; all past members of the 2007-2014 advisory panels who gave so freely of their time and energy; Keshet Bachan; Feyi Rodway for coordinating the ‘Real Choices, Real Lives’ study since its inception in 2006; Jo Lateu, Ian Nixon and Vanessa Baird, from New Internationalist Publications; Steve Tierney from Alike Creative for the infographics; Jackie Morris for illustrating River Story; Jennifer Schulte and Sharon Smee for background research; all of the participants in the ‘adolescent girl movement’ survey and Fabiola Villarreal Núñez. And to our translators Corinne Mateo, Ivette López, Fer de la Cruz, Josep Escarré, Jeannette Payen Short, Virginie Sauzon and Alistair Cunningham; to the Lancet for permission to reproduce ‘Patriarchy and Violence Against Women and Girls’ by President Carter, Bloodaxe Books for permission to reproduce ‘A Century Later’ by Imtiaz Dharker, and The Random House Group Ltd for permission to reproduce River Song by Joanne Harris. Thanks to Asma Films for our use of the Champions of Change video. Special thanks to the 4,219 adolescent girls from Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Ecuador and Nicaragua who took part in our ‘Girls Speak Out’ research. And to our research partners Ipsos MORI with special thanks to Rebeccah Szyndler and Olivia Ryan. Thank you to for primary research funding. 4 THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S GIRLS S ICTURE P S ANO P IANNE MILTON/ IANNE L Protesters in Brazil. Girls Report team: Sharon Goulds – editor, project manager and author Jean Casey – research manager Lili Harris – project coordinator & researcher Sarah Hendriks – director of gender equality and social inclusion, chair of editorial board and author Simone Schneider – picture research Additional research by: Ella Page, Eve Mosley and Mary Bridger Printed in the Czech Republic by PBtisk s.r.o. ISBN: 978-92-9250-023-8 Design and Production: New Internationalist Publications Ltd Whilst every effort has been made to ensure that the information contained in this publication is accurate at the time of going to press, Plan International cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies. The commentary and opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent the official policy of Plan International. Part of this publication may be copied for use in research, advocacy and education, providing the source is acknowledged. This publication may not be reproduced for other purposes without the prior permission of Plan International. Unless otherwise indicated, names have been changed in case studies to protect identities. Unless otherwise indicated, dollar values expressed are US dollars. 5 Contents Foreword: Graça Machel . 9 Section 1: Introduction Gathering the evidence – being young and female from 2000-2015 and beyond By Sharon Goulds and Sarah Hendriks.........10 Poem: Half the sky By Imtiaz Dharker ........................21 I M ‘We are the generation of change’ Sally Armstrong, the Canadian journalist and author of Uprising, talks to girls from all over the KOUTANIE MEERI world who are battling to change it...........26 Girls Speak Out: Section 3: Learning for life Voices from our research If I had the power ........................38 The imperative of educating girls Julia Gillard, formerly Prime Minister of Australia Section 2: Girls in the global economy and current chair of the Global Partnership for Education, analyses the good, the bad and the The invisible work force indifferent in the struggle for gender equality in Katrine Marçal, author of Who Cooked education ..............................50 Adam Smith’s Dinner?, looks at the dominant economic model and ‘What about the boys?’ finds that something is missing ..............40 Chernor Bah, a young activist from Sierra Leone, talks about girls’ empowerment Creating a brighter future and why he is a feminist ...................56 Indra Nooyi, CEO of PepsiCo, champions the rights of girls and young women Poem: A century later at school and at work .....................46 By Imtiaz Dharker ........................63 Measuring Progress: Measuring Progress: Girls in the global economy, facts and stats....48 Learning for life, facts and stats .............64 6 THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S GIRLS Refugee camp, Niger. Section 4: Conflict and disaster Measuring Progress: Girls in cities, facts and stats . .84 Travelling the sidewalks Journalist and writer Mariane Pearl with an Section 5: Men and boys impassioned article about women and girls and their resilience in the face of disaster..........66 Men hold the power President Jimmy Carter on patriarchy, religion ‘The greatest cause of our time’ and violence against women. ...............86 A photo-essay on the courage of young mothers curated by Liya Kebede, international model and Champions of Change maternal health campaigner ................74 Young men from Latin America on battling the stereotypes and why “equality Measuring Progress: makes me happy” ........................90 Conflict and disaster, facts and stats . 76 Measuring Progress: Tracing the past and building the future Working with men and boys, facts and stats ...94 Anita Haidary, a campaigner from Afghanistan, talking about her life, her country’s future and founding Young Women for Change..........78 7 Section 6: New technology Voices of hope: charting the future Sharon Goulds and Sarah Hendriks find ‘We must become cybernauts’ out what girls want in the years ahead . .120 Catalina Ruiz-Navarro, poet, journalist and activist from Colombia, with an article on Girls Speak Out: the digital divide in Latin America ............96 Voices from our research Empower girls ..........................132 Girls Speak Out: Voices from our research *** Communication, information, education ......104 River Song #BringBackOurGirls A short story from Joanne Harris ...........134 Bukky Shonibare, consultant and member of the #BringBackOurGirls movement, writes *** about the challenges facing girls in Nigeria and the role of social media in campaigning ...106 Reference section Measuring Progress: References.............................142 Girls and new technology, facts and stats ....112 Plan International’s Because Section 7: Final words I am a Girl campaign .....................149 ‘When I was a child’ Where Plan International works ............150 Renowned writer and activist Nawal El Saadawi looks back over several decades of women’s About Plan International ..................152 and girls’ rights in Egypt ..................114 South Sudan. S ICTURE P S ANO P OL/ K BRIAN SO BRIAN 8 THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S GIRLS Foreword going forward. Their reflections and their different voices should n 2007 I wrote the foreword help us all to understand why Ifor the first of the ‘State of the equality between women and World’s Girls’ reports, welcoming men, girls and boys, sometimes Plan International’s report seems an impossible dream; and as a significant contribution S spur us on to identify and tackle ER D L to the efforts to document E the root causes of inequality so E E discrimination against girls and Th we can come closer to making fight gender inequality. I said then that dream a reality. MOORE/ that without gender equality none ff The Millennium Development JE of the Millennium Development Goals gave the human family Goals would be achieved. lives; the challenges and risks of something to strive for, something Now in 2015 we have come increasing urbanisation; working to measure progress against and, to a pivotal moment. A year of with men and boys; and, last sometimes, a reason to rebuke reckoning for the MDGs and year, ‘Pathways to Power’, which those in power when change the 20th anniversary of the looked at attitudinal, structural was very slow in coming. It has Beijing Declaration, when 189 and institutional barriers to gender proved, over all the decades of governments signed up to make equality. All the reports tell a struggle that women of my age women’s rights a reality. It has similar story – they tell us that we have been engaged in, very hard been a year to celebrate