UNITED NATIONS MARKS OCTOBER 11 THE INTERNATIONAL DAY OF THE GIRL CHILD

Across the globe there are around 600 million girls aged between 10 to 19 years old and contrary to the normal notion that gender inequality is only prevalent in India, girls face all sorts of discrimination be it right to education, legal rights, medical care, child marriage and violence against women. Keeping all that in mind, the United Nations has marked October 11^th as the International Day of the Girl Child which is also called Day of the Girl.

The objective of this day is to increase awareness about the challenges that the girls around the world face on a regular basis. Even though ‘Women Empowerment’ is a known notion, many are not aware of the issues faced by a girl child.

For example, girls between the age of 5 to 14 years spend 160 million hours more on household chores than boys of the same age, one in four girls gets married before the age 18.

Various events across the globe are organized every year some of which are sponsored by United Nations and this year the day’s theme is ‘EmPOWER girls: Before, during and after conflict.”