what it is like to be a girl

January 18, 2008

An article in yesterday’s Toronto Star outlines Plan Canada’s project to follow the lives of girls around the world. The project is called Because I am a Girl. The hardships too many females have to face speak for themselves. This is what inequality looks like.

Life for girls in developing countries:

• 62 million girls under age 15 do not go to school.
• 96 million young women 15-24 are illiterate.
• 7.3 million young women are living with HIV and AIDS.
• Two-thirds of newly infected youth in sub-Sahara Africa are females.
• 14 million females aged 15 to 19 give birth each year.
• Pregnancy leading to birth or unsafe abortion is the leading cause of death for females aged 15 to 19 world-wide.
• More than 700,000 teenage girls are married each day with the majority of girls in many countries married before 18.
• 450 million adult women are stunted from childhood protein malnutrition.
• 9.6 million girls are in hazardous labour including slavery, prostitution and armed conflict.

sources

Because I am a Girl, the state of the world’s girls 2007, Plan Canada
GIRLS GLOBALLY, sidebar, Toronto Star | January 17, 2008