ANNE ERB-LEONCAVALLO
Girl Power
on women’s rights, I was tickled earlier this year to see photos of girls in Afghanistan smiling and looking fierce as they rode on their skateboards. They defied stereotypes and preconceptions. Their smiles were contagious. I could feel the wind in my hair as I flew through the air. The photo essay, Skateboarding Makes Afghan Girls Feel Free, by Kat Lister, appeared in Vice in January. The photographs, by Jessica Fulford-Dobson, capture the spirit and personality of skate girls in Kabul who attend Skateistan, an NGO that uses skateboarding as a tool of empowerment. For me it epitomizes the paradox of girl power in 2015. While girls are claiming their space and freedom, they are also being held back and threatened. Afghanistan is one of the toughest places to be born a girl. Of the 4 million children not enrolled in school, 60 percent are girls. And, as international forces continue to withdraw from Afghanistan, violence against women and girls remains widespread.
Afghanistan has the highest number of terrorist attacks aimed at schools, at girls schools in particular. Islamic extremists, such as Al Quaeda, ISIS, etc. do not believe in girls’ education or women’s rights. They throw acid, burn down schools and pull a trigger to keep girls where they should be, dead if they are demanding their rights as was intended for Malala in Pakistan. As girls stand up for their right to education, extremists are trying to get them to stay at home, disempowered and servile, and in the worst cases, sold as sex slaves, or forcibly married as child brides.
Every year 15 million girls are married before age 18. That’s 28 girls each minute, denied their rights and childhood. This is the narrative that we hear in news reports and social media, it is why we are pleasantly surprised when we see girls like those in Afghanistan breaking gender boundaries, being free and brave, attempting 360-flips on their skateboards. Girl power is hard to repress. Last year a friend of mine met a teenage African girl at the airport to drive her into New York City. She was scheduled to speak at the UN on her efforts to end FGM, female genital mutilation, in her community. It was the first time she had been on a plane, out of her country of Kenya, and she was very surprised to see ice, and escalators when she arrived at the airport. Back home, her parents wanted her to undergo the FGM procedure but she refused to participate, and managed to get other girls in her village, and parents, to do the same.
She started a movement to change a deeply-rooted tradition so that girls would no longer be mutilated. In thousands of villages and communities across Africa, people are making public declarations to abandon FGM. There is a global movement to end this harmful practice within a generation. Kadiga, an Ethiopian girl, is a strong opponent of FGM.
“I will never subject my child to FGM/C if she happens to be a girl,” she said, “and I will teach her the consequences of the practice early on.” As for her critics, Kadiga shrugs off their disapproval. “All this is nothing to me. I will keep very strong and go on.” Times are changing. But sometimes I feel as if I’m on a teeter-totter. Up when I hear about girls and women taking steps forward, and down when I hear about continuing abuse, exploitation and violence. About 2.2 million girls between the age of 5 and 15 are trafficked every year for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Nearly 50% of all sexual assaults worldwide are against adolescent girls under the age of 15 years.
In every region, there are insidious forces to keep girls in their place, or sexed-up and exploited. It is easy to find pre-pubescent girls dolled up as sex symbols on billboards, magazines and the Internet, not to mention clothing stores that sell sexy hot-pants for girls of kindergarten-age. The sexy, skimpy shorts being sold for pre-school girls in one large U.S. retailer prompted an irate mother to write a post that went viral because it struck a nerve with other parents who do not think innocent little girls should dress up like sex tarts. Just last weekend I went with my 17-year-old daughter to orientation at a college in Boston, only to be informed that the university is one of 106 in the United States being reviewed by the federal government for their handling of sexual violence. One in five U.S. female college students will experience sexual violence.
Of course all of this begs the question: What is going on? It seems to me that there are two forces colliding with each other. One is that girls and women area rising up. The other is a backlash to push them down. The new part of the equation is global media—the Internet, cell phones and videos that are used to full effect by both sides to mobilize support.
ISIS is reportedly putting high-definition cameras on the end of guns for footage that looks like a video game to recruit new fighters. Seven years ago in 2008, a video went viral called The Girl Effect. With rhythmic music and bold graphics it made the case that girls are the most powerful force for change if they are given a fair chance. The message can be summed up: Invest in girls, change our world.
Today we see many videographics for social and political causes. The Girl Effect was one of the first and is cited for increasing awareness and mobilization for girl power. Another force that has benefited girls is the global push for universal education since 2000. The greatest progress is in girls’ education. Almost two-thirds of countries will have reached gender parity in primary education by 2015. But not everyone is pleased with these results. After Malala was shot in the head for speaking out for the right of girls to go to school, she put it simply, “We know that terrorists are afraid of the power of education.” Malala lived through threats to her life and 17 corrective surgeries. At age 17 she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. While her story is dramatic and she is now famous, there are millions of girls like Malala who are rising up in their quest for equality and freedom.
It is up to all of us to support them.
ANN ERB-LEONCAVALLO
SPEECHWRITER, UNFPA