Making Girls Count

Nearly six months after becoming an international celebrity for winning a divorce from a man three times her age, 10-year-old Nujood Ali returned to school this month.

Per tribal custom, Nujood's father had pulled the little girl out of second grade to be married to a man in his 30s who beat and sexually abused her. The Yemini child bride, with the help of an aunt, found the courage to fight back and was ultimately granted a divorce.

While Nujood has regained some semblance of childhood, most child brides do not. That is why one of the topics world leaders took up at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI)'s annual meeting was ways to address the critical challenges faced by adolescent girls.

Adolescent youth are the fastest growing segment of the world's population, primarily in the poorest developing countries. With one person in eight being a girl or young woman age 10-24, the welfare of the world's girls fundamentally impacts a country's economic, environmental and social outcomes. The fact that the world's girls and young women tend to be less educated, less healthy and less free than their male counterparts impacts us all.

We applaud CGI for keeping this vital issue at the forefront of world leaders' agenda and hope it serves as a wake-up call to donor governments that have found it too easy to ignore adolescent girls and label them lost victims of social custom. It's time for girls' voices to be heard and their realities to change.

Tamara Kreinin is the Executive Director of Women and Population at the United Nations Foundation.

Comments

[Dan-at-ICRW]

Tamara - thanks you for keeping the issues of child marriage and adolescent girls front and center. Unfortunately, Nujood Ali"s story is all too common. She is one of 60 million child brides worldwide (http://www.icrw.org/childmarriage/) who are forced to marry before the age of 18. It is heartening to hear that Nujood Ali returned to school, since the vast majority of child brides live in extreme poverty with little recourse to education or basic rights. Many suffer domestic violence and health consequences due to early pregnancy. To learn more about the consequences of this harmful practice, watch "The Bride Price," (www.youtube.com/icrw) a short video that depict the lives of girls in Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Nepal who marry as children.

http://www.icrw.org/childmarriage/

http://www.youtube.com/icrw

[Mildmannered]

The more equal a country treats its women, the more prosperous the country is.