International Day of the Girl Child

December 19th 2011, the UN declared the October 11th would become the International Day of the Girl Child. Its aim is to recognize the girls’ rights and the particular obstacles they encounter throughout the world.

This year’s day is the second one and has for theme “Innovating for Girls’ Education”.

The girls’ right to education is an obligation and a moral must. Numerous studies show that girls’ education, especially in secondary, has great impacts on the societies’ changes and the girls themselves. Education is the determining factor of all development factors, such as reduction of the mortality rate, of the fecundity rate, and of poverty.

Even if important progresses have been made recently for girls’ access to education, many girls especially the disadvantaged, keep on being deprived of this fundamental right. In many countries, girls still do not have the possibility to go to school and go through their studies because of financial, security, institutional or cultural obstacles. However, even when at school, the weak teaching, the lack of ambition, the domestic duties and the other responsibilities keep them from success. The power of transformation is now in the hand of girls’ education.

In order to adopt new perspectives to make the education of girls progress, the International Day of the Girl Child 2013 will be dedicated to the importance of the new technologies, but also innovating in partnerships and politics, the resources utilization, and overall the children’s participation.

All the UN organisms and the Member States incline potential means to innovate for and with girl children in order to promote their education. For example, improve the public or private transportation the girls use to go to school; ease the relationship between banks and schools for faster communication of salaries, scholarships, etc; sponsoring programs in the companies to help the girls acquiring the adapted skills.

For last year’s International Day of the Girl Child, India celebrated the first ever International Day of the Girl Child by illuminating iconic monuments in pink. Qutub Mina, Humayun’s Tomb and Purana Quila in Delhi, but also Charminar in Hyderbad were illuminated pink on October 11 in order to make aware the population and to mobilize support.