Like Shabana, who risked her life to learn, Malala is just a child who wants to go to school. Yet she is also a beacon of change, and each of us has a responsibility to take notice, and to join her in demanding change.

Girls must be empowered, women must be educated and respected, and civilized people everywhere, men as well as women, must stand together to protect them.

Perhaps this will inspire each us to think of our girls for the next 364 days, bringing awareness and support to the other half of our world population.

On the eve of Oct. 11, 2012, the first United Nations International Day of the Girl Child, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addressed a group of Gir...

Lately, I have been reflecting on the ingenuity and commitment I witness in the women and girls I meet during my learning trips to the developing world. That's because today, October 11, 2012, marks the first-ever United Nations International Day of the Girl. And it's about time.

Resources, leadership and long-term commitments are necessary to close persistent gender gaps and improve the rights and well-being of millions of girls around the world.

Today we can focus on the demanding global issues of our time, like the fact that only 30 percent of girls in the world are enrolled in secondary school and one in seven girls in developing countries are married off before the age of 15.

Who do you care about? Is it your sister, your niece, your daughter, your best friend? One girl--every girl. As a Teen Advisor to Girl Up, a campaign of the United Nations Foundation; as a 16-year-old girl myself; but most of all, as an older sister who would literally give my sister the world, I am calling on you to join our movement in the first International Day of the Girl Child on Oct. 11, 2012.

If we went to Ghana together, I'd want you to meet Linda Donkor, a 16-year-old student in Worldreader's program. She lives with her grandmother and her sisters.

Adolescent girls in the developing world today face greater disadvantages and more limited opportunities than boys the same age.

Malala Yousafzai, growing up in a small town in northern Pakistan, had started fighting for her rights -- and the rights of other girls in her community -- when she was 11 years old.

The question is how we really reach the 250 million adolescent girls living in poverty today. Our starting point has always been and will continue to be girls themselves. We all need to ask ourselves what we know and truly understand about adolescent girls, or indeed what we think we know.

When a young girl living in a rural community of a poor nation sees her family preparing a once-in-a-lifetime thriftless party, reality doesn't hit un...