Girl child problem around the world has many dimensions but the root of all kind of discriminations and bias against the girl child lays in the customs, traditions and the typical mindset of the society which looks the girl child and women as inferior beings.
Girl child problem: Treatment of women and girls
Women and girls have been treated in the most inhuman ways if we look back at the last two thousand years of human civilization. This legacy is continuing even today in most parts of the world in one way or the other. Female foeticide, female infanticide, sexual abuse, marginalization in terms of nutrition, healthcare and education, violence against women and bias against women in all spheres of life including the social, political, economic and religious structures of society is a common norm even in today’s world.
Women and girls don’t have decision making power of their own life. It is always somebody else(men/boys) who makes decisions for them. Women in many parts of the world don’t even have control of their own body and mind. Her reproductive and sexual rights are also compromised. Let me give some examples in this regard. Female Genital Mutilation is still practiced in many parts of the world. Half of the total sexual assaults in the world are committed against girls age 15 or younger. An adolescent girl is married without her consent and becomes pregnant long before her body is ready. The leading cause of death for girls age 15-19 is complications from pregnancy and annually, two million girls between the ages of five and 15 are forced into the commercial sex market. This is a glimpse of the real world and the girl child problem. Now we can imagine the way women and girls are treated around the world.
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