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2ND DEC 2008
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 Nearly 50% of all sexual assaults worldwide are against girls aged 15 or younger. Sixty two million girls are out of primary school, Seventy per cent of the 1.5billion people living on less than a dollar a day are female.
The UN, at the turn of the millennium made a series of initiatives to tackle the problem of discrimination of girls in third world and developing countries.
But of the eight goals set out seven years ago, six are in jeopardy according to Plan UK's Because I am a Girl – The State of the World’s Girls report.
As the G8 leaders get together in Germany next month to review progress to commitments made at Gleneagles this report should make essential reading.
Discrimination against girls is on such a huge scale worldwide and often starts from the moment they are in the womb. The shocking practise of female foeticide is on the increase, and 130 million women around the world have suffered female mutilation (with an additional two million undergoing the procedure every year).
The six Millennium Development Goals in jeopardy:
1 Eliminate extreme poverty and hunger
The UN wants to reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger but there is clear gender discrimination that is preventing this.
The lack of value placed on girls means they get less nutrition than their brothers, a disproportionate number of girls are not in school, and they can face violence throughout their lives.
2 Universal Primary Education
The aim to have all children in full primary schooling by 2015 cannot be met until the initiatives to encourage girls to remain in school are implemented.
3 Promote gender equality and empower women
Although progress has been made, the target to ensure gender parity in primary and secondary education by 2005 was not met.
4 Reduce infant mortality
The aim was reduce by two-thirds infant mortality rates by 2015.
Again girls are at a distinct disadvantage here that means this is unlikely that this will be met if action is not taken. Despite girls’ natural resilience at birth, more girls than boys die before the age of five in many parts of the world.
A further concern is the preference for boys in the two most populous countries on earth, China and India.
5 Improve maternal health
The UN in their aims also sets out to improve maternal health and reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality rate, however the leading cause of death for young women between 15 and 19 is not disease or famine, but pregnancy, particularly in younger girls who when they give birth face a higher risk of complications which could lead to death.
6 Tackle HIV and AIDS, malaria and other diseases
By 2015 the UN wants to halt and reverse the spread of HIV and AIDS, malaria and other diseases but it is women who are particularly at risk and they have less knowledge generally than young men.
Reversing the spread of AIDS is dependent on reducing the infection rates of young women and tackling the gendered behaviour, which determines their lack of choice in decisions about sex.
Plan UK are asking people everywhere to sign the pledge ‘I pledge to do what I can, when I can, where I can, to fight for equality and create a fair world where all girls can live without fear and fulfil their dreams.’
You can sign online at www.becauseiamagirl.org, by text or signature. The signatures will be presented to world leaders on November 20th 2007, International Day of the Child.
You can also sponsor a girl or support a Plan UK project at www.plan-uk.org
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