“What are we going to do without an education, if we can’t make what we are passionate about a reality? I don’t want to graduate and stay home. Girls like me could be anything and they don’t let us,” says Khalida, a 16-year-old student who was living in Kabul when the Taliban closed schools in 2021.
Like her, some 78 million boys and girls do not go to school, despite the fact that education is a fundamental right. More than 42 million of these out-of-school minors are girls, according to the United Nations. On the occasion of International Girl’s Daywe denounce 10 barriers they face in order to study.
1. Educational discrimination just because they are girls
Nakisa lives in Kabul and watched as the Taliban closed her school in March 2022. Afghanistan is the only country in the world where girls are banned from education from the age of 12.
In Iran, where girls over seven are forced to cover themselves with a veil, young people from all over the country have organized under the motto “Woman, life, freedom.” Girls have also mobilized in schools and it is no coincidence that more than 13,000 students have had to be hospitalized with signs of poisoning.
2. Lack of diversity at school
There are other discriminations that are added to gender discrimination. In Malawi, children with albinism are denied education; in Guatemala, indigenous girls have a lower level of schooling; and in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, Roma students are segregated.
3. Without school due to his disability
The 240 million girls and boys with disabilities worldwide are 47% more likely than others not to attend primary school and three to four times more likely to suffer physical and sexual violence.
4. Child marriage and early pregnancies
Girls with little education are six times more likely to be married than those who finish secondary school. For the first time in two decades, early and forced marriages are on the rise, fueled by inequality and extreme poverty.
Every day, in Paraguay, two girls under 14 years of age become mothers. Many of these pregnancies are the result of sexual abuse and more than 80% occur in the family environment. In Tanzania and Equatorial Guinea, pregnant minors are prohibited from attending school and taking exams.
5. Neither affective-sexual education nor menstrual hygiene in school
We know that it is essential to train girls to identify situations of violence and be able to make decisions about consent, contraceptives or to prevent sexually transmitted infections. However, in Peru, Paraguay, Poland and several states in the United States, sexual education is prohibited in educational centers.
Besides, the Menstruation often becomes a barrier to education. According to The Lancet Regional Health, in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Japan or Nepal, between 11% and 41% of girls miss school during their period. In Pakistan, 59% of girls who start secondary education end up dropping out because their period is an indicator that they are “ready for marriage.”
6. Be a weapon of war in conflicts
In conflict zones, girls are 90% less likely than boys to receive an education. Furthermore, the recruitment of child soldiers is a common practice: it is estimated that around 40% are girls, used as “sexual objects.” In Iraq, between 2014 and 2017, the self-proclaimed Islamic State kidnapped Yazidi girls, enslaved them, raped them, tortured them and forced them to fight. Many have survived, but suffer from serious health problems and receive no assistance.
According to a report by Entreculturas, in South Sudan girls live in fear of being kidnapped, raped or murdered and it is at school where they feel most protected.
7. There is no school for refugee girls
Only half of the almost 50 million refugee girls and boys in the world go to school and only a quarter access secondary education.
In Myanmar, where there is ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya Muslim population, more than half of this population flees to Bangladesh, but there they are denied the right to school. The situation is not good in Europe either, where some of the refugee children have not been able to study in host countries such as Greece or Serbia for more than three years.
8. Trapped in the circle of poverty
In the most impoverished countries, 70% of 10-year-old girls and boys do not know how to read or understand a story. One in three teenage girls from the world’s poorest households has never been to school and thousands are forced to drop out of school due to the additional burden of household chores.
9. Suffer from climate change
Extreme climate-related events are causing schools to close or be destroyed every year. When families are forced to move due to weather changes, the risk of dropping out of school increases drastically. Increasing temperatures have even been shown to reduce educational outcomes. If current trends continue, by 2025 the climate emergency will contribute to 12.5 million girls not completing their education each year, according to Save the Children.
10. Unsafe and violent schools
Many girls go to school fearing for their safety. They are attacked along the way or humiliated with rumors that circulate on mobile phones or the Internet. Some face threats of sexual assault from other students or hear about teachers offering them higher grades in exchange for sexual favors. Cyberbullying is increasing and bullies act without fear of punishment.
We are halfway through the deadline set to meet the Sustainable Development Goals, a plan of 17 goals—the fourth is education—agreed upon in 2015 by the 193 member states of the United Nations so that the world is better by 2030. But, this pace, we are far from reaching them. If the girls behind the situations in this text went to school and felt safe, if they could be girls and not forced mothers, not be forcibly married or suffer sexual violence, if they could escape the cycle of poverty, If they managed to become independent women, then we could say that the objectives of the 2030 Agenda have been met.
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