WHO IS A GIRL CHILD?
Definition of ‘child’
According to Article 1 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989, “child means every human being below the age of eighteen years unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier.” Therefore, International Law gives the status of child to the persons who are below eighteen years of age.
Who Is the Girl Child? What do we want for Her life journey? What navigation rules have made ours a “man’s world” and not Hers? What needs to change so our world’s daughters, and their daughter’s daughters, are not the world’s “least of these”?
They go to school, help with housework, work in factories, make friends, care for elder and younger family members and prepare themselves to take on the responsibilities of adulthood. Girls play multiple roles in the household, society and the economy. Upholding the rights of the girl child has seen increased support through the nearly global adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, as well as through the UN Millennium Development Goals target of increasing equality between girls’ and boys’ educational attainment.
While today, equal numbers of boys and girls are receiving primary education in most of the world, few countries have achieved that target at all levels of education. According to the 2014 MDG Report in 2012, 781 million adults and 126 million youth worldwide lacked basic reading and writing skills, with women accounting for more than 60 per cent of both populations. Even when girls are encouraged to continue their education, they face major challenges that make it difficult for them to attend regularly, sometimes receiving an unequal share of the household tasks due to customary practices in many regions of the world.
Though life for the girl child is steadily improving, many are still subjected to horrific practices, such as female genital mutilation, son preference – often resulting in female infanticide – as well as child marriage, sexual exploitation and abuse. Girls are also more likely to experience discrimination in food allocation and healthcare, and are often outpaced and outranked by boys in all spheres of life. The Girl Child was also one of the 12 critical areas of concern raised in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action in 1995, concluding in nine strategic objectives framed as a means of holding governments accountable for girl’s rights.
Freedom from all forms of discrimination against the girl child remains only partly fulfilled, and governments and societies must galvanize efforts if true freedom is to be won. Policies and programmes initiated must be duty-bound to take into consideration the differing, yet critical, needs of the girl child in terms of physical protection from sexual and physical exploitation, discrimination in all forms including in the field of education, and increased awareness of the struggles being faced by girls today.
Maybe you know Her? She is your daughter. She is your sister. She is your mother, your aunt, your grandmother, your friend, your colleague. She is you. She is the woman in the girl, the girl in the woman. She is free of and undefined by centuries upon centuries of diminishing ideology, theology, and traditions that treat being born female as lesser than, unclean, inferior, meant for submission, the cause of evil in the world. As not meant to grow into the full human agency and power of adulthood.
She is the free spirit within each of us that comes into the world not knowing any of these rules, roles, and codes that await and define Her path. She is that scrappy voice within that presumes an equal place in the banquet of Life.
She is both a me and a we. She sees self in the other. And the other in Herself. She is part of a movement that spans centuries, one girl, one woman standing on the shoulders of another. She knows that her own freedom is bound up in the plight of others.
The descendants of Eve are scattered across time and place yet are climbing the same mountain of injustice. She has collectively been defined from the outside, but another truth has been arising from within.
The train has left the station, the butterfly is breaking out of its cocoon, the genie has left the patriarchal bottle and cannot be put back in…
The truth of Her being – the free Girl Spirit – is rising up to tell Her story. From womb to tomb, She is telling Her truth to the world: this man’s world has created a legacy of harm that has become normal but is not okay. Her gaze says to the john, the pimp, the master of the house, “You do not own me”… And to the pastor, the priest, the rabbi, the imam, and all those who are the guardians of traditions: “How could this be? Maybe, just maybe, we’ve got something wrong?”
She is leading us to another world that is not only possible but is on Her way… for such a time as this.
She is the author of Her own story. The captain of Her own ship. The Girl Child is the feminine face of God, which has a fresh new start in each baby girl born into the world. She comes into the world knowing things…
She is a force of nature that comes into the world saying: “Watch me grow! I can do this!”
Her voice is essential to our progress as a human family and our shared liberation from ancient and interlocking oppressions. She is bravely climbing every mountain in her path, saying to the world, “I am more than what this edifice of traditions has said I am. I am not a passive recipient of traditions – I am part of recreating them.”
She knows there is another way to be human that can accept differences without elevating one over the other.
She is a sister who loves her brothers. Like them, she wants to play. And go to school. And be fully valued. And grow up to spread her wings to fly and chart her course freely in the world.
The playground of life, though, is still far from level. The rules of the game are still stacked against Her. Her climb today is way too steep, way too treacherous. Traditions continue to clip her wings and excise parts of her humanity calling this “holy.” Her basic human rights are still frighteningly tenuous and prone to regression and backlash.
But the Girl Child is strong, She is curious. What She wants and deserves more than anything is a childhood free of harm and external definition to be and become who she truly is. This uphill climb is hers to take.
She is not accepting yesterday’s tired old answers. She is spreading Her wings. She does not need anyone to “empower” her but rather to not disempower her.
She is not alone on Her long walk to freedom. It is also mine. It is yours. None of us is free until we all are. Her chains are ours as her human family.
Freedom is a sacred trust given to all human beings. It is the air our souls need to breathe, to be, to become.
Freedom is indivisible. It cannot be stratified. If it is not expanding, it will regress.
Freedom requires us to be free enough within our own hearts and minds to question what isn’t working.
The Girl Child is each and every one of the 180,000 girl babies born each day into our world with a heart ready to unfurl its sail and chart its own course.
Are you with Her?
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