Gender equality
Societies that protect equal rights for girls and boys create benefits for everyone.
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Gaps in opportunities for girls and boys often start small but widen as children grow. Boys and girls are just as likely to attend preschool, for example. But by late adolescence, twice as many girls as boys are not in any form of education, employment or training. Especially in low-income countries or among communities living in poverty, gender inequality can keep girls from critical opportunities and care.
Globally, girls bear heavier burdens of domestic work, disproportionate risks of child marriage, and greater threats of gender-based violence compared to boys their age. They’re subjected to female genital mutilation by the millions. And when denied their most basic rights, girls have fewer chances to improve their circumstances and pass down opportunities to their own children.
In this way and others, boys also suffer from harmful gender norms. Notions of masculinity can fuel child labour, gang violence and recruitment into armed groups, especially when communities are grappling with poverty. No matter where it prevails, or how it shows up, gender inequality takes something from everyone.
What we do
Reducing inequality strengthens economies and builds resilient societies that give all children the chance to thrive. UNICEF works with governments and partners around the world to create learning opportunities for girls, support their unique health needs, and keep them safe from harm.
Explore our work across these key areas:
Programme overview
Investing in girls’ education transforms communities, countries and the entire world. Girls who receive an education are less likely to marry young and more likely to lead healthy, productive lives. They earn higher incomes, contribute to more prosperous societies, and build better futures for their families. But education is more than schooling. It’s also about girls feeling safe in classrooms and supported in the subjects they choose to pursue.
An estimated 230 million girls and women worldwide have undergone some form of female genital mutilation (FGM) – many before the age of 15. Despite being internationally recognized as a human rights violation, FGM persists for various reasons. No matter where or how it is performed, FGM causes extreme physical and psychological harm.
Child marriage refers to any formal marriage or informal union between a child under the age of 18 and an adult or another child. Despite a steady decline in this harmful practice over the past decade, child marriage remains widespread, with approximately one in five girls married in childhood across the globe. Child marriage is often the result of entrenched gender inequality, making girls disproportionately affected by the practice. Girls who marry before 18 are more likely to experience domestic violence and less likely to remain in school, leading to worse economic and health outcomes than their unmarried peers.
Gender-based violence is the most pervasive yet least visible human rights violation in the world. It includes physical, sexual, mental or economic harm inflicted on a person because of socially ascribed power imbalances between males and females. It also includes the threat of violence, coercion and deprivation of liberty, whether in public or private. In emergency settings, the risk of gender-based violence soars.
Discrimination shows up in countless ways across every country and culture. But no matter where you look, one group stands universally more likely to suffer exclusion based simply on how they’re born: Girls.