[women-rights] Despite progress, girls subjected to violence and discrimination

***Learn more about International Women's Day, 8 March 2007:  
http://www.hrea.org/feature-events/iwd.php


NEW YORK, 5 March 2007 -- Violence against women and girls is one of the
most extreme forms of inequality, UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman
said today on the occasion of the 51st Session of the UN Commission on the
Status of Women.

"Despite progress, we continue to live in a world where millions of girls
remain out of school, engaged in exploitative labor, are trafficked, are
vulnerable to HIV/AIDS and are targets of sexual violence," Veneman said
in advance of International Women’s Day on 8 March.

Stressing the critical link between discrimination against girls and women
and violence, Veneman drew attention to the sexual violence committed in
armed conflict, trafficking, and practices such as honour killings, dowry
crimes, early marriage, and female genital cutting/mutilation.

"In too many countries and regions, the plight of girls is ignored or
denied," Veneman said. "This leaves girls to suffer in silence and has a
devastating effect on the well-being of families and communities."

Veneman said education is a key to addressing discrimination and violence
against girls and to helping achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
Educated girls are better equipped to protect themselves against
life-threatening diseases such as HIV/AIDS, are more likely to give birth
to healthy babies who will survive and grow into adulthood, tend to delay
marriage, and are more likely to have fewer children.

"Economic development is enhanced in societies where both girls and boys
are educated," Veneman said. "We need accelerated efforts to help ensure
that girls go to school and can learn and study in safe environments."

Those efforts must include abolishing the school fees that prevent many
poor families from sending their daughters to school, providing sanitary
facilities for girls in schools, supporting community-based early
childhood development, and helping to protect girls against violence at
school or on their way to class.

It is also critical that girls, including the most disadvantaged and
marginalized girls, have safe spaces to be involved in recreational and
learning activities without fear of violence or abuse.

Men and boys also must be engaged in the fight to end discrimination and
violence against girls.

"Men and boys can be powerful allies in the struggle for women's and
girls' equality and in rejecting violence against girls and women,"
Veneman said. "Achieving gender equality requires the participation of all
of society to challenge the norms that allow girls and women to be
devalued and denied."

"It is long past time that countries, cultures and communities everywhere
accept that it is in their own best interests to treat girls and women as
equals," Veneman said. "Common sense and economics alike tell us that a
society cannot possibly marginalize half its population and expect
positive outcomes."

UNICEF Press release