Saturday | 5 October 2024 | Reg No- 06
বাংলা
   
Saturday | 5 October 2024 | Epaper

Invest in girls’ rights to combat gender inequity

Published : Saturday, 30 September, 2023 at 12:00 AM  Count : 910
Shamim Ara Shammi
Like every year, National Girl Child Day, also known as "Girls' Day," is observed this year with an aim to combat gender discrimination as well as to promote girls' and women's rights worldwide. The fundamental goal of this day is to ensure girls' access to justice, nutrition, healthcare, and education.

This year, the theme of International Girl Child Day 2023 is "Invest in Girls' Rights: Our Leadership and Wellbeing" (by UNICEF). Every year in Bangladesh, the Ministry of Women and Child Affairs (MoWCA) declares the date of National Girls Child Day. During the current year, they declared the date of National Girl Child Day as September 30, 2023. Let's come to explore some background information and why National Girl Child Day observations need to be celebrated now.

Canada was the first country to observe this day, proposing to the United Nations General Assembly that the International Day of the Girl Child needs to be observed globally. The proposal was approved on December 19, 2011, and since October 2012, International Girl Child Day has been celebrated annually. In Bangladesh, National Girl Child Day was first observed in 2003 as an effort to create a safe future for girls. Until now, International Girl Child Day has been observed the following year. But our country has not made significant progress in achieving the target of ending child abuse, exploitation, trafficking, and violence against children, particularly girls.

On National Girl Child Day, in the entire world a number of awareness campaigns, meetings, and seminars are held to promote girls' rights in education, their right to a healthy diet, and other issues. We highlight our efforts, our goals for the future, and our vision of a safe and healthy environment for girls. In the long twenty years from 2003 to 2023, how much changes have been possible in the implementation of a healthy and safe environment for girl child?

Bangladesh has not yet made much progress in this area, considering the Sustainable Development Goals' 2030 target for ending child abuse, exploitation, trafficking, and all other forms of violence against children. Even, children who are girls experience worse realities. The "Girl Child Situation Monitoring Report 2022" was created between January and August 2022 in 13 different categories by the National Girl Child Advocacy Forum (NGCAF). According to the data, 574 female children were sexually assaulted in total in the first eight months of 2022, including 84 victims of gang rape and 43 kids with disabilities. Another 87 girls have experienced attempted rape, according to a report by the National Girl Child Advocacy Forum (NGCAF). It stated that twenty children had died after being raped.

After many such incidents, some criminals were arrested after the GD and the case, but most of them were later released on bail. Moreover, they threaten victims and their guardians with dire consequences. Though the report did not find any information on final disciplinary action against the perpetrators in any such case, the High Court order suggested disposal of rape or murder cases within 180 days of submission to the Women and Child Abuse Prevention Tribunal. These data reveal a grim reality of the social condition of the country, underscoring the urgent need for improvement.

Additionally, it is of the utmost importance to inform everyone that Bangladesh has risen to fifth place globally in terms of the incidence of child marriage, according to a report on the state of the population. Bangladesh was rated sixth in the 2022 report the previous year, with the same rate. UNFPA representative Kristine Blokhus said that: Bangladesh has the highest rate of child marriages in Asia and expressed worry about the situation.

To address these issues, all citizens need to take part in government initiatives as well as national and international organizations' efforts to end child marriage and ensure equal rights for girls. Creating a safe and supportive environment for girls is essential for promoting their well-being, leadership development, and the overall progress of society.

It is extremely upsetting that girls continue to experience a variety of forms of abuse, such as family violence, sexual harassment, forced marriages, and other forms of violence despite the fact that our country has achieved middle-income status and has experienced economic growth in many sectors. In light of this unforeseen expansion, now this is high time to work toward building the future and asserting to promote the rights of the girl child in Bangladesh. Every citizen of the entire country is required to take part in ending violence in order to ensure equal rights for the girls.

Finally, some steps toward gender mainstreaming in this area are important, for example: ensure gender-segregated data analysis, which can give us a clear picture of women's and men's participation in contributions to all social and economic spheres. Consider how the experiences of women and men vary in different social or economic groups and how these differences are relevant, as well as explain the vulnerability of the women and girls in the country.

All in a nutshell, national-level surveys, policy-level initiatives, proper implementation, more specific interventions, and dialogues can make it possible to turn the lives of the girls on a new leaf.

The writer is a Programme Manager, Gender Justice & Diversity Programme at BRAC.



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