Despite recent advances in important aspects of the lives of girls and women, pervasive challenges remain, most often as a result of widespread constraints. These constraints often violate women's most basic human rights. The report, released ahead of the International Day of the Girl Child , distills vast data and hundreds of studies to shed new light on constraints facing women and girls worldwide, from epidemic levels of gender-based violence to biased laws and norms that prevent them from owning property, working, and making decisions about their own lives.
It highlights promising reforms and interventions from around the world and lays out an urgent agenda for governments, civil society, development agencies, and other stakeholders. Among its keys findings: Girls with little or no education are far more likely to be married as children, suffer domestic violence, live in poverty, and lack a say over household spending or their own health care than better-educated peers, which harms them, their children, and communities.
Across 18 of the 20 countries with the highest prevalence of child marriage, girls with no education were up to six times more likely to marry than girls with high school education, the report finds. Nearly one in five girls in developing countries meanwhile becomes pregnant before age 18, while pregnancy-related causes account for most deaths among girls in the developing worldβnearly 70, die each year. Despite recent advances in important aspects of the lives of girls and women, pervasive challenges remain, frequently as a result of widespread deprivations and constraints.
In all regions, better educated women tend to marry later and have fewer children. It explores the power of social norms in dictating how men and women can and cannot behaveβdeterring women from owning property or working even where laws permit, for example, because those who do become outcasts. Policymakers and stakeholders need to tackle this agenda, drawing on evidence about what works and systematically tracking progress on the ground.
This must start with reforming discriminatory laws and follow through with concerted policies and public actions, including multi-sectoral approaches that engage with men and boys and challenge adverse social norms. Increasing school enrollment and achieving gender equality in enrollment are longstanding development goals.
