One in 3 women is subjected to violence over the course of her lifetime, often by someone she knows. Millions of girls around the world still face the risk of genital mutilation/cutting, despite a century of efforts to put an end to it. Every day, 20,000 girls below age 18 give birth in developing countries. Nine in 10 of these births occur within marriage or union, which reflects the fact that the percentage of girls being married off before they turn 18 has not changed much in recent years. As we chart the development path ahead, let us look to the foundation laid 20 years ago in Cairo at the International Conference on Population and Development, which recognized that empowering women and girls was both the right thing to do and the key to improved well-being for all – a message echoed a year later by world leaders in Beijing.
Posted on: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 21:57:46 +0000
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