Because I am a girl
If you’re complaining to someone about how wet it is, or cold, or hot, or how much interest rates have gone up, or your shares in Acme corp have gone down, or how your neighbour turns the music up too loud and you can’t sleep - just have a reality check for a few hours and read the 2007 Because I Am A Girl report from Plan organisation.
Some atrocious statistics to prepare your stomach lining:
- Pregnancy is a leading cause of death for young women aged 15 to 19 worldwide
- About 140 million girls have undergone female genital cutting and two million are subjected to it every year
- In South Africa, 32% of reported child rapes were carried out by a teacher
- In India, 60% to 70% of adolescent girls are anaemic
- In Britain, among 16-24 year olds, twice as many young women as young men are overweight
- One in 10 births worldwide is to a mother who is still a child herself
- 70% of the 1.5 billion people living on $1 a day or less are female
- Britain’s Equal Opportunities Commission between 2003 and 2005 showed that there is still a gender pay gap in the UK, of 18% for women working full time and 41% for those working part-time
- 80% of the 600,000 to 800,000 victims of trafficking per year are girls and women
So, along with the UN, Plan have an action plan that includes nations enforcing their own laws (including the international ones they subscribe to).
Try every day to make it better. It’s in your own back yard, wherever you live.
