30 years of uneven progress for adolescent girls

Ahead of International Women’s Day, and against a backdrop of widespread global aid cuts, a new UNICEF, Plan International and UN Women report highlights that gains have been made, but efforts remain insufficient.

Despite significant achievements in areas such as education over the last three decades, millions of adolescent girls across the world today are still out of school, ill-equipped for the future, facing gaps in life-saving health services, and at risk of harmful practices such as child marriage, female genital mutilation, violence and abuse.

And with governments around the world cutting humanitarian aid and consequently rolling back commitments to gender equality, this new report highlights the importance of continued support for girls.

Girl Goals: What has changed for girls? Adolescent girls’ rights over 30 years – launched today by UNICEF, Plan International and UN Women ahead of International Women’s Day – reviews how adolescent girls’ lives have changed in the last 30 years since the Beijing Platform for Action was endorsed by 189 governments in 1995.

“A focus on girls – supporting them to ensure their basic needs and rights to food and water, education, health care, work and safety – is the absolute key to unlocking global progress on development,” Plan International Australia chief executive Susanne Legena said.

“The freeze to USAID and the recent aid funding cuts by the UK, Belgium and other countries is already being felt around the world, with thousands of NGOs and governmental agencies forced to close humanitarian and development schemes. Major programmes delivering food, medicines, public health services and energy to the planet’s most vulnerable populations have been switched off and face an uncertain future.

“We know all too well how heavy the burden of aid cuts will fall on girls. Already discriminated against for their age and their gender, girls face barriers to education, work and participation in public life. They’re disproportionately affected by hunger and ill-health, and, in many parts of the world, they face child marriage, sexual violence and teenage pregnancy,” she said. This report highlights further challenges for girls including:

Education, training and digital skills:

• Despite a 39 per cent decrease in out-of-school girls in the last 20 years, 122 million girls remain out of school globally. Adolescent girls aged 15-19 in South Asia are three times more likely than boys to not be in school, employment or training.
• Nearly 4 in 10 adolescent girls and young women globally do not complete upper secondary school, with girls from rural poor backgrounds and marginalised communities even less likely to complete schooling.
• While the number of adolescent girls and young women who are illiterate has nearly halved in the last three decades, nearly 50 million adolescent girls and young women today are unable to read or write a simple sentence.
• 9 out of 10 adolescent girls and young women in low-income countries do not have access to the internet, while their male peers are twice as likely to be online.

Gender-based violence:

• Nearly 1 in 4 adolescent girls who have been married or partnered have experienced intimate partner violence worldwide, and 50 million girls alive today have experienced sexual violence.
• More than a third of adolescent girls and boys aged 15-19 globally consider a husband to be justified in hitting his wife under certain circumstances.

Harmful practices:

• The practice of female genital mutilation is declining, with countries including Burkina Faso and Liberia halving the share of girls subjected to the practice over the last 30 years. However, the global rate of decline needs to be 27 times faster to meet the 2030 eradication target.
• Girls today are less likely to marry under the age of 18, compared to 25 years ago. Still, 1 in 5 girls globally marry in childhood. The most progress has been made in South Asia while Latin America and the Caribbean has observed no progress over the last 25 years.

Health and wellbeing:

• Globally, the number of adolescent girls giving birth has nearly halved over the past 30 years. Still, nearly 12 million adolescent girls aged 15-19 are expected to give birth in 2025. Among younger adolescent girls (aged 10-14), for whom the risk of pregnancy is even more grave, this number is estimated to be more than 325,000.
• Complications from pregnancy and childbirth account for roughly 1 in every 23 deaths among adolescent girls aged 15-19, worldwide.
• Globally, the proportion of underweight adolescent girls aged 10-19 has declined slightly in the last three decades, from 10 per cent to 8 per cent.

The report lays bare the urgent need for global action to unlock the enormous potential of adolescent girls and puts forward the following recommendations:

• Elevating adolescent girls’ voices and supporting their advocacy to shape policymaking on the issues that affect their lives.
• Focusing on areas where progress has stalled and is a top priority for adolescent girls themselves – for example on closing the education, skills and training gap for girls – while considering new global trends and attitudes.
• Using data-driven evidence to invest where gaps are largest and most pressing for adolescent girls, focusing on changes at scale and joint targeted action – with a greater focus on economic empowerment and ensuring girls have the skills, assets and resources they need to thrive.

“Tireless efforts to combat gender inequality mean that a girl’s chances of going to school are significantly higher than three decades ago, and her chances of marrying or becoming pregnant as a child much lower,” Ms Legena said.

“There is much to celebrate – but at the same time, this progress is fragile, uneven, and constantly under threat, no more so than today. Too many girls continue to face discrimination and abuse every day, simply for being young and female. Our work to achieve equality for girls must continue, working with girls, women and their allies around the world.

For more information, please contact:

Jackie Hanafie on jackie.hanafie@plan.org.au or +62 8123 1371 949

Kylie Whittard on kylie.whittard@plan.org.au or +61 0412 229 850