Today is International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
Gender inequalities and complications:
Educating young girls is one of the biggest moral challenges of our generation, and an absolute necessary investment for more peaceful world. Without equal access to quality education, the world will continue to suffer from maternal morality and poverty. This means they experience continual hunger, lack of access to clean water and sanitation, which leads to irreversible damage especially for young children.
When families can afford one child's education, they will choose a boy as they are deemed more valuable. Girls are then forced to work long hours scrounging for food and fetching water to support their brother's education.
She will then marry and have children very early, generation will resemble like hers, because she never had the chance to stabilize her economic situation.
Consequences:
Malnutrition is not only about food, because it starts with poverty. If girls received the same educational opportunities as boys, the greater their changes of making a living, and exercise the freedom of making their own choices. Not to mention, complications during pregnancy are the leading cause of death for girls between 15-19 around the world.
What happens:
Although gender-based violence pervades all socioeconomic groups, men who live in poverty are socially excluded, which means they are at serious risk in perpetuating violence due to frustrations from the lack of income security. This leads to more extreme conflicts outside of his home, contributes to fragile states where economics have collapsed, displaced persons and thus insecurity prevails.
Meanwhile, this increases the risk for women who become vulnerable to such violence:
- Nearly 1 billion women will experience sexual violence in their lifetime
- 38% of murders of women are committed by an intimate partner
- 200+ million women have experienced genital mutilation (FGM)
- More than 30 countries worldwide exempt rape prosecutions for a married victim
*UN Women
Challenges remain where laws are not implemented, and the abuse goes unpunished. It is devastating.
Education transforms lives:
Adolescent girls who attend school are less likely to get married or have children early. That means child marriage would drop 64% worldwide if every girls received an education!
They are also more informed about sexual and reproductive health, and less likely to contract diseases including HIV and AIDS. Women can increase their lifetime earnings by +25% when she attends an extra year of secondary school. With a higher level of education means better financial contributions, so women can become empowered to make decisions for herself and her family.