What needs to be done?

Despite the remarkable progress in efforts to enable girls to fully enjoy their rights, there is still a great deal of work to be done in order to achieve the objective. There are still many unresolved issues of discrimination, inequality, neglect, exploitation and violence against girls and women.

Part of the problem is the extreme poverty in many societies, which undermines the good intentions of many poor countries to implement policies that would redress the discrimination and inequality that affects girls and women. The Secretary General in his Millennium Report has urged governments to adopt a target of lifting half the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by 2015 and by 2020 achieving a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers world-wide. In addition, to ensure a safe water supply, governments are urged to reduce by half between now and 2015 the proportion of people who lack sustainable access to adequate sources of affordable and safe water.

Nothing has as great an impact on children and especially girls as a quality education.

Despite the progress made over the previous decades, fewer girls than boys enrol in school, and once enrolled, girls do not succeed in their studies as well as boys. More needs to be done to break the cycle of poverty. By 2005 the Secretary General has proposed demonstrably narrowing the gender gap in primary and secondary education and by 2015 ensuring that all children have completed a full course of primary education.

HIV/AIDS, the gravest challenge human beings face at the moment, complicates the problem as girls are at even greater danger than boys the same age of being infected.

Studies have found that there are many girls who are quite unaware of how vulnerable they are to the disease and what they should do to protect themselves from infection. The Secretary General is urging government to establish prevention targets of at least 90 percent by 2005 and at least 95 percent by 2010 of young men and women having access to the information, education and services they need to protect themselves from infection. In addition, developing countries are encouraged to work with their pharmaceutical companies and other partners to develop and distribute an affordable, effective vaccine against HIV.

Societies must therefore redouble efforts to address the social and cultural practices that still prevent girls and women from fully enjoying their rights. Poorer countries need help from the richer ones to provide basic services, the lack of which exacerbates discrimination against the girl child. According to the Secretary General, more fortunate countries can help by

  • Granting duty-free and quota-free access to their markets for goods produced in developing countries, especially all exports from the least developed countries.

  • Cancelling the debt of the heavily indebted poor countries and diverting much needed funds for health and education programmes to service their debt.

  • Granting more development assistance, particularly to countries who are make great strides in poverty reduction.

  • Work with pharmaceutical companies in developing an affordable and effective vaccine against HIV for wide distribution to developing countries.

  • Developing strong partnerships with the private sector in combating poverty.

  • Making special provisions for the needs of Africa in its struggle to overcome the continent’s problems