"Short-changing girls is not only a matter of gender discrimination; it is bad economics and bad social policy. Experience has shown, over and over again, that investments in girls’ education translate directly and quickly into better nutrition for the whole family, better health care, declining fertility, poverty reduction and better overall economic performance."

--From the Millennium Report

Vital Statistics

• Of the more than 110 million children not in school, approximately 60 per cent are girls.
  
  
• By age 18, girls have received an average of 4.4 years less education than boys.
  
  
• World-wide of the more than 130 million primary school age children not enrolled in school, nearly 60% are girls.
  
  
• In some countries in sub-Saharan Africa, adolescent girls have HIV rates up to five times higher than adolescent boys.
  
  
• Pregnancies and childbirth-related health problems take the lives of nearly 146,000 teenage girls each year.
  
  
• In sub-Saharan Africa, a woman faces a 1 in 13 chance of dying in childbirth. In Western Europe, the risk is 1 in 3,200.
  
  
• At least one in three girls and women worldwide has been beaten or sexually abused in her lifetime.
  
  
• An estimated 450 million adult women in developing countries are stunted, a direct result of malnutrition in early life.
  
  
• Two million girls and women are subjected to female genital mutilation every year.