HIV AIDS, GIRLS, & EDUCATION

Advancing the rights of women and children advances humanity. Many children in developing countries start life without adequate means of nutrition, learning, and protection. Women and girls are particularly challenged. Uneducated girls are more at risk than boys to become marginalized. They are more vulnerable to exploitation. They are more likely than educated girls to contract HIV/AIDS, which spreads twice as quickly among uneducated girls than among girls that have even some schooling.

As unschooled adults, these girls will be less likely to have a say socially and politically and to be able to support themselves. Women’s rights and access to land, credit and education are limited not only due to legal discrimination, but because more subtle barriers such as their work load, mobility and low bargaining position in the household and community prevent them from taking advantage of their legal rights. These problems affect their children: Women earn only one tenth of the world’s income and own less than one per cent of property, so households without a male head are at special risk of impoverishment. These women will also be less likely to immunize their children and know how to help them survive. Gender bias undercuts women’s rights in other areas. Practices such as early marriage or poor health services result in high rates of maternal mortality. Having a missing or disabled mother severely undercuts a child’s chances of survival and health as well. The world has recognized the importance of gender equality. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history, sets forth provisions that include civil rights and freedoms, family environment, basic health and welfare, education, leisure and cultural activities and special protection measures for all children. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), adopted in 1979 by the UN General Assembly and acceded to by 180 States, sets down rights for women, of freedom from discrimination and equality under the law. Realizing the rights and equality of women is also the key to the survival and development of children and to building healthy families, communities and nations.

Getting girls into quality school environments helping them stay there. If a family can afford school fees for only one child, it will likely be a boy who attends. If someone needs to fetch water or do housework instead of going to school, a girl will likely be chosen. If someone needs to stay home to care for younger siblings or sick or infirm household members, this will most likely be a girl: girls will also most likely be withdrawn from school early in adolescence as the age of marriage approaches. Yet study after study shows that educating girls is the single most effective policy to raise overall economic productivity, lower infant and maternal mortality, educate the next generation, improve nutrition and promote health. Girls with at least six years of school education are more likely to be able to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS and other diseases. Educated mothers immunize their children more often than mothers who are not educated, and their children have a higher survival rate. Moreover, mothers who have had some education are more than twice as likely to send their own children to school as are mothers with no education. Getting girls into school and ensuring that they learn and thrive in quality, child-friendly learning environments are key UNICEF priorities, fulfilling Millennium Development Goal 2 of universal primary education as well as this Goal. As lead agency for the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI), UNICEF is coordinating efforts of a broad range of partners at global, regional, and national levels to meet the goals of gender parity and equality in education.

UNICEF is working to ensure that girls’ right to education is realized by working with these partners, by raising awareness via our field offices and through international media campaigns, by funding and supplies procurement, by assisting governments with policy and problem solving when invited to do so, and by helping communities to mobilize around these issues. Helping women and girls avoid HIV/AIDS. In some countries in sub-Saharan Africa, HIV prevalence among teenage girls is five times higher than among teenage boys. The danger of infection is highest among the poorest and least powerful, particularly children who live among violence, suffer sexual exploitation or have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS. Broad partnerships are vital to conquering the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and UNICEF is key to strengthening partnerships with UNAIDS, multinational agencies, academic and research institutions, non-governmental organizations and the private sector. UNICEF also leads UN efforts in monitoring and reporting situation analyses, behavioural assessments, and programme results. Improving maternal health. UNICEF efforts in girls’ education give a boost to this area as well. If a girl is educated six years or more, as an adult her prenatal care, postnatal care and childbirth survival rates will dramatically and consistently improve.

The single biggest factor in a healthy birth, however, is the presence of skilled assistance, particularly in emergency obstetrics. UNICEF helps key partners work with governments and policy makers to ensure that emergency obstetric care is a priority in national health plans, and assist governments with training and logistics. Maternal care is also an important goal in community health. Along with vaccination campaigns for children, UNICEF procures and distributes tetanus vaccines, micronutrient supplements and insecticide-treated bed nets (to fight malaria) for expectant women. Work within communities includes help coordinating health care services for maximum effectiveness maternal care with newborn care, for example. Giving girls a good start in early childhood. A child’s earliest years are critical. Skills such as language acquisition, social competence, coping, the ability to think critically and the capacity to learn, all develop in the first years of life. Without adequate nutrition, nurturing, health care and psychosocial stimulation, a child’s potential for a competent and productive life is sapped.

Because of entrenched gender bias in many regions, young girls fare less well than boys in many aspects of early childhood, including receiving a worse diet and health care. In fact, there are tens of millions fewer women alive today than there would be in a world without gender discrimination and without social norms that favour sons. To ensure that all young children get the best start in life, UNICEF advocates and helps governments and communities form policies and programmes in health, nutrition, water and environmental sanitation, psycho-social care and early learning, child protection and women’s rights. Emphasis is on strengthening the capacities of families and other caregivers as most health care takes place at home in developing countries mobilizing community health and child learning services, and coordinating and integrating maternal health interventions with those focused on early childhood.