The theme for to­day’s In­ter­na­tion­al Day of the Girl Child is, “The girl I am, the change I lead: Girls on the front­lines of cri­sis.”

The day “fo­cus­es at­ten­tion on the need to ad­dress the chal­lenges girls face and to pro­mote girls’ em­pow­er­ment and the ful­fil­ment of their hu­man rights...this is a ral­ly­ing cry to see girls for who they tru­ly are, to lis­ten to their voic­es and to recog­nise their lim­it­less po­ten­tial.

For girls aren’t wait­ing for a bet­ter world, they are build­ing it...All around the world, girls are step­ping up to meet to­day’s biggest chal­lenges. They are or­gan­is­ing in their com­mu­ni­ties, fight­ing for cli­mate jus­tice, de­mand­ing an end to vi­o­lence and reimag­in­ing their fu­tures. Girls are ask­ing to be seen not on­ly for the chal­lenges they face, but for who they are and the so­lu­tions they bring. Yet, too of­ten, their voic­es go un­heard, their ac­tions ig­nored, their needs and rights pushed aside...When we in­vest in girls, we cre­ate a more equal, just and hope­ful world - for every­one” (UN).

Malala Yousafzai, the fe­male ed­u­ca­tion ac­tivist, who was award­ed the No­bel Peace Prize in 2014 at age 17, has said: “We can­not all suc­ceed when half of us are held back...We re­alise the im­por­tance of our voice when we are si­lenced... I want every girl to know that her voice can change the world.”

To in­vest in girls, we must iden­ti­fy the var­i­ous chal­lenges they face in to­day’s world and de­vel­op strate­gies to ad­dress them.

Save the Chil­dren out­lines 16 prac­ti­cal tips that pol­i­cy­mak­ers, fun­ders, or civ­il so­ci­ety or­gan­i­sa­tions can use “to ad­vance girls’ rights and dri­ve ac­tion against gen­der-based vi­o­lence.”

Gen­der-based vi­o­lence is just one of the chal­lenges girls face. Oth­ers in­clude: lack of ed­u­ca­tion (133 mil­lion girls are out of school to­day. Ado­les­cent girls aged 15-19 are more like­ly to not be in ed­u­ca­tion, em­ploy­ment or train­ing than their male peers.

Al­most four in 10 ado­les­cent girls and young women do not fin­ish up­per sec­ondary school (UN)); pover­ty/so­cial ex­clu­sion; un­equal pay/un­paid labour; in­ad­e­quate health­care; in­se­cure hous­ing; poor men­tal health; food in­se­cu­ri­ty; hu­man traf­fick­ing; cli­mate change; the dig­i­tal di­vide; per­son­al and in­sti­tu­tion­al dis­crim­i­na­tion based on, for ex­am­ple, eth­nic­i­ty (racism), so­cial class, gen­der, age, im­mi­grant sta­tus; pe­ri­od pover­ty; lim­it­ed free­dom of move­ment; bul­ly­ing/cy­ber­bul­ly­ing; un­der­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of girls at all lev­els of de­ci­sion-mak­ing world­wide; rape; in­cest; child brides/forced mar­riages; gen­der pref­er­ence; ho­n­our killing; fe­male gen­i­tal mu­ti­la­tion; de­nial of the right to own prop­er­ty; mi­gra­tion is­sues etc.

Ac­cord­ing to UN Women, mi­gra­tion “can ex­pose women and girls to se­ri­ous risks such as ex­ploita­tion, traf­fick­ing in per­sons, forced labour, and gen­der-based vi­o­lence.”

The dig­i­tal di­vide can ad­verse­ly im­pact girls/women. Eliz­a­beth An­der­son, CEO of the Dig­i­tal Pover­ty Al­liance, says: “It’s in­cred­i­bly im­por­tant to sup­port girls to de­vel­op dig­i­tal skills from a young age, as these will help sup­port their as­pi­ra­tions as they grow.

And it’s equal­ly as im­por­tant to en­sure that women of all ages can de­vel­op skills and have the de­vices and op­por­tu­ni­ties to use the in­ter­net lat­er in life to look af­ter their fi­nances, man­age health­care, en­gage in so­ci­ety, ap­ply for jobs, and find com­mu­ni­ties of in­ter­est to them. Around 90 per cent of jobs are sole­ly ad­ver­tised on the in­ter­net, and with­out the abil­i­ty to get on­line, women risk be­ing un­able to ap­ply for as as­pi­ra­tional roles, and so­ci­ety suf­fers with­out their con­tri­bu­tions. End­ing dig­i­tal pover­ty is a key tool in clos­ing the gen­der di­vide.”

We must take an in­ter­sec­tion­al ap­proach to girls’/women’s hu­man rights. “In­ter­sec­tion­al­i­ty,” a term coined in 1989 by Co­lum­bia Law School pro­fes­sor and civ­il rights ad­vo­cate, Kim­ber­lé Cren­shaw, is “ba­si­cal­ly a lens, a prism, for see­ing the way in which var­i­ous forms of in­equal­i­ty of­ten op­er­ate to­geth­er and ex­ac­er­bate each oth­er.

We tend to talk about race in­equal­i­ty as sep­a­rate from in­equal­i­ty based on gen­der, class, sex­u­al­i­ty, or im­mi­grant sta­tus. What’s of­ten miss­ing is how some peo­ple are sub­ject to all of these, and the ex­pe­ri­ence is not just the sum of its parts.

In­ter­sec­tion­al­i­ty op­pos­es an­a­lyt­i­cal sys­tems that treat each ax­is of op­pres­sion in iso­la­tion. In this frame­work, for in­stance, dis­crim­i­na­tion against black women can­not be ex­plained as a sim­ple com­bi­na­tion of misog­y­ny and racism, but as some­thing more com­pli­cat­ed.”

While we cel­e­brate the progress that has been made over the years, we have a long way to go be­fore we tru­ly cre­ate a cul­ture in which girls can flour­ish and re­alise their dreams.

Girls can be change-mak­ers. Each of us has a du­ty to pro­mote girls’ em­pow­er­ment and the ful­fil­ment of their hu­man rights.