• On the eve of the International Day of the Girl Child (October 11), a report titled as ‘Global Girlhood Report 2023: Girls at the Centre of the Storm — Her planet, her future, her solutions’ has been released by Save the Children, a charity organisation for children.

Background

• The theme of International Day of the Girl 2023 was Invest in Girls’ Rights: Our Leadership, Our Well-being.
• Gender inequality is the root cause of child marriage, but other risk factors increase the likelihood of a girl being married. 
• These include being out-of-school, living in poverty, food shortages, being pregnant or having a baby and exposure to other forms of gender-based violence. Climate disasters and the long-term impacts of the climate crisis can increase these risk factors

Major Highlights

• Almost nine million girls around the world are facing an increased risk of child marriage along with climate disasters.
• An estimated 29.9 million girls reside in the top 10 countries identified as child-marriage and climate hotspots. The 10 hotspot countries are the Central African Republic, Chad, Guinea, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Niger and South Sudan.
• In South Asia, particularly Bangladesh and in sub-Saharan Africa, Central African Republic, Chad and Guinea, were identified as most severely impacted regions. These regions are also severely impacted by poverty, gender inequality, conflict and hunger.

Way forward

• Recognise the linked climate and hunger crises as emergencies for girls’ rights.
• Accelerate efforts to end child marriage to stop this abuse of girls’ rights.
• Make gender equality and safety from gender-based violence top priorities in all responses and plans to mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis.
• Unlock financing to deliver the SDGs and fund urgent climate action by making the global financing system work for everyone.

About Save the Children

• It’s a NGO registered in ENGLAND which works for protection of child rights.

Major Child Welfare Programmes in India