World celebrates Day of the Girl 2018

The world celebrates the International Day of the Girl Child, on Thursday October 11 as commissioned by the United Nations seven years ago.

It focuses attention on the need to address the challenges girls face and to promote girls’ empowerment and the fulfillment of their human rights, the U.N. says.

This year’s Day of the Girl Child is themed With Her: A Skilled GirlForce.

This comes in the wake of social conversations around gender equity at the work place.

Through #MeToo and #TimesUp, many have recently come out to address sexual harassment and exploitation of female employees through unequal pay.

Similarly, girl child education, training, entry into the work force, access to information, communication technology and resources are addressed.

Reports reveal that young women are more likely to be unemployed in large parts of the world.

This is due to their seclusion when it comes to education, training and acquiring globally competitive skills.

They are often left to domestic home-keeping and raising families through marriage- especially in developing countries.

“This year alone, 12 million girls under 18 will be married, and 21 million girls aged 15 to 19 years will become pregnant in developing regions,” says UN report.

There are however suggested solutions towards making ‘Her’ a part of the skilled GirlForce through:

• rapidly expanding access to inclusive education and training;
• improving the quality and gender-responsiveness of teaching and learning to enable girls to develop foundational, transferable  and job specific skills,
• increase girls’ participation in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) learning among others.