National Day of the Girl Child :: 24th of January every year

January | Wednesday | 25, 2018 :: National Day of the Girl Child Day is observed on 24 January every year. It is imperative to promote the value of the girl child by investing in a range of opportunities for adolescent girls including their education, life skills, sports, work, community service, volunteering in important social movements, etc

Girls’ education is one of the best investments that India can make for its people and its future. An educated girl tends to marry later and avoids early and risky childbearing. Also, the children she does have will be more likely to survive, better nourished and better educated. Girls married at an early age have lower levels of education, lower economic status, less livelihood opportunities, and they have little say in their home. The likelihood of domestic violence is also higher.

Child marriage comes at a cost society cannot afford. A girl who is married as a child is more likely to be out of school, experience domestic violence and other kinds of abuse. She is more likely to have children when she herself is still a child, and is far more likely to die due to complications during pregnancy and childbirth.

Child marriage negatively affects the Indian economy and can lead to an intergenerational cycle of poverty. Girls and boys married as children more likely lack the skills, knowledge and job prospects needed to lift their families out of poverty and contribute to their country’s social and economic growth.

Situation in Jharkhand

Jharkhand has 72 lakhs girl younger than 18 years. They are the future of a vibrant society and a stronger demographic dividend for the state. Yet the ambition for gender equality in the Sustainable Development Goals highlights the existence of disadvantage and discrimination borne by girls everywhere on a daily basis.

Dr. Madhulika Jonathan, Chief of UNICEF Jharkhand says, “It is important to note that female work force participation in rural Jharkhand is significantly low at 19.8%. This is significant for Jharkhand as an economy. Jharkhand State should hence invest in adolescent girls to enable them to delay marriage until the legal age. This will have far reaching results both in terms of improved economic productivity, increased household income and will help tackle and address intergenerational poverty.”

Issues affecting girls younger than 18 years:
Jharkhand has a declining child sex ratio with 919 girls against per 1000 boys, one in every three girl is married before 18 years of age (census 2011), Age specific attendance ratio is lower for girl child (90:76, NSSO 2014), more than half of the girls are anaemic 67 % (NFHS 3), Infant mortality rate for the girl child is 31 as against 27 for boys (SRS 2016), stunting is higher for girl child 49.9 as against 44.7 for boys (RSOC 2013-14).

Jharkhand has the third highest rate of child marriage in the country after West Bengal (40%) and Bihar (39%). Married women of 20-24 years married before 18 years (which is the standard indicator to measure of child marriage) is 38% in Jharkhand, compared to 26.8% at the national level (NFHS 4). In Jharkhand, child marriage rate is highest in Godda district. 63.5% of married women of 20-24 years were married before 18 years in Godda, compared to the State average of 38%. Figures from other districts are Garhwa (58.8%), Deoghar (52.7%), Giridih (52.6%), Koderma (50.8%), Chatra (49%), Dumka (47.4%), Pakur (41.1%), Hazaribagh (40.8%), Palamu (40.5%), Sahibganj (38.4%) and Bokaro (30.6%) (NFHS 4). Child marriage was lowest in Simdega (14.7%) followed by PashchimiSinghbhum (21.3%), Gumla (24%), Ranchi (28.1%), Lohardaga (28.5%) and Dhanbad (29.9%) (NFHS 4).

Target 5.3 of the SDGs commits governments to “eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilations” by 2030. At the UN General Assembly on 25 September 2015, all UN Member States pledged their public support towards achieving target 5.3 to end child marriage as part of the wider SDGs.

As SDG implementation gets underway, including the development and rollout of indicators to track progress at global, regional and national levels, there is a critical unfinished agenda on ensuring availability and use of high-quality, timely and reliable data on girls’ progress, including for those living in poverty or with a disability.

Progress of girls, Progress for all
• An extra year of primary school for girls can increase their eventual adult wages by 10 to 20 per cent, and an extra year of secondary school increases them by 15 to 25 per cent.
• If all girls completed secondary education, under-five child mortality could be cut in half.
• Studies from India show that delaying adolescent pregnancies could have increased national economic productivity by US$7.7 billion dollars (51590 crores).

Action for advance progress of girls
• Families and communities need to know about the harms caused by child marriage; key provisions of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act 2006 (PCMA) and they should remain alert about the child marriage in their village/community/area and try and prevent it. In the case of child marriage, should immediately inform to BDO of concerned block or call on 1098.
• Narrow the gender gaps by enhancing effectiveness of girl child schemes like the Mukhya Mantri Ladli Laxmi Yojana;
• Promote schemes to incentivize girls to remain unmarried until they attain legal age of marriage and promote their education or skill development.
• Ensuring MHM (menstrual hygiene management) components in schools like supply of absorbents, disposal services, proper toilets and availability of correct information on MHM will go a long way in ensuring regular attendance of girls in schools.
• Enhance capacity of governments departments and institutions to collect, analyze and disseminate gender data across the age spectrum to improve statistics on gender-based violence, adolescent pregnancy and reproductive health, informal employment, entrepreneurship, unpaid work, and other priorities for girls and young women.
• Disaggregate data on boys and girls and along other dimensions (e.g., ethnicity, age, income-level, disability, location, migration status, etc.) for better understanding that which children and adolescents are most disadvantaged and where.
• Provide travel support to girls in hard to reach areas to enable them access secondary and higher education. Make provisions for increasing access to vocational training.
• Create policy and development dialogue around the gender to build consensus for coherent and convergent action.

Data – India & Jharkhand