Plan International - Girls' Rights Platform - Girls' rights are human rights: Positioning girls at the heart of the international agenda

4. Also calls upon States to ensure the right to education of good quality for women and girls, on an equal basis with men and boys, and to ensure that they complete a full course of primary education, and to renew their efforts to improve and expand girls’ and women’s education at all levels, including at the secondary and higher levels, and including age-appropriate sex education, as well as vocational education and technical training, in order to, inter alia, achieve gender equality, the empowerment of women and girls and poverty eradication;

40. Recognizes the special needs of girls, strongly condemns terrorist attacks on education facilities, and encourages the Government of Afghanistan, with the assistance of the international community, to expand these facilities, to train professional staff and to promote full and equal access to them by all members of Afghan society, including in remote areas;

23. Requests the Secretary-General to ensure that a gender perspective and the needs and rights of the girl child are integrated into the preparatory work for the special session of the General Assembly on the follow-up to the World Summit for Children in 2001, inter alia, by providing the General Assembly with a comprehensive report drawing on the experiences and outcomes of the five-year reviews of the International Conference on Population and Development, the Fourth World Conference on Women and the World Summit for Social Development, and the World Education Forum.

20. Stresses the need for the integration of the rights of children, girls and boys alike, in all policies and programmes, and for ensuring the protection and promotion of those rights, especially in areas relating to health, education and the full development of their capacities;

Noting with appreciation the work carried out by all relevant organs, bodies and mechanisms of the United Nations system within their respective mandates, in particular the United Nations Children’s Fund and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, the United Nations Population Fund and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, as well as the efforts of organizations and civil society to promote girls’ full and equal enjoyment of the right to education,

(e) Adopting all appropriate measures in the field of education to modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women of all ages in order to promote the development of respectful relations and to eliminate prejudices, harmful customary practices and all other practices based on the idea of the inferiority or superiority of either of the sexes and on stereotyped roles for men and women, and raising awareness of the unacceptability of violence against women and girls at all levels, in the public and private spheres;

18. Calls upon Governments, civil society, including the media, and non- governmental organizations to promote human rights education and the full respect for and enjoyment of the human rights of the girl child, inter alia, through the translation, production and dissemination of age-appropriate and gender-sensitive information material on those rights to all sectors of society, in particular to children;

8. Recognizes the need for more intensive efforts to reach the goals for child mortality, the education of children, in particular girl children, maternal mortality, child malnutrition and sanitation;

68. Recognizes the special needs of girls, strongly condemns terrorist attacks on educational facilities, especially on those for Afghan girls, and encourages the Government of Afghanistan, with the assistance of the international community, to expand those facilities, train professional staff and promote full and equal access to them by all members of Afghan society, including in remote areas;

9. Also recognizes the value of teaching entrepreneurial skills at all levels of education, ensuring the full and equal participation of women and girls, and encourages entrepreneurship education through skills development, capacity- building, training programmes and business incubators;

19. Invites Member States to develop national plans of action, or to strengthen existing ones, in order to achieve the objectives of Education for All so as to ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling;

6. Also urges States to condemn all harmful practices that affect women and girls, in particular female genital mutilation, whether committed within or outside a medical institution, to take all necessary measures, including through educational campaigns and by enacting and enforcing legislation to prohibit female genital mutilation, to protect women and girls from this act of violence, to hold perpetrators to account and to put in place adequate accountability mechanisms at the national and local levels, where applicable, in order to monitor progress;

43. Notes with concern that child, early and forced marriage disproportionally affects girls who have received little or no formal education and is itself a significant obstacle to educational opportunities for girls and young women, in particular girls who are forced to drop out of school owing to marriage and/or childbirth, recognizing that educational opportunities are directly related to women’s and girls’ empowerment, employment and economic opportunities and to their active participation in economic, social and cultural development, governa nce and decision-making;

14. Reaffirms the critical role of both formal and informal education in the achievement of poverty eradication and other development goals as envisaged in the Millennium Declaration, in particular basic education and training for eradicating illiteracy, and efforts towards expanded secondary and higher education as well as vocational education and technical training, especially for girls and women, the creation of human resources and infrastructure capabilities and the empowerment of those living in poverty, in this context reaffirms the Dakar Framework for Action adopted at the World Education Forum on 28 April 2000, 17 and recognizes the importance of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization strategy for the eradication of poverty, especially extreme poverty, in supporting the Education for All programmes as a tool to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education by 2015;

4. Calls upon States to recognize the right to education on the basis of equal opportunity and non-discrimination by making primary education compulsory and available free to all children, including those living in rural areas, and ensuring that all children have equal access to quality education, as well as making secondary and tertiary education available and accessible to all, in particular through the progressive introduction of free secondary educatio n, bearing in mind that special measures to ensure equal access, including affirmative action, ensuring physical access to education, including by increasing financial incentives to families, improving the safety of girls on the way to and from school, ens uring that all schools are accessible, safe, secure and free from violence and providing hygienic, separate and adequate sanitation facilities, contribute to achieving equal opportunity and combating exclusion and ensuring school attendance, in particular for girls and children from low-income families and children who become heads of households;

24. Calls upon States, educational institutions and the United Nations system, in particular the United Nations Children’s Fund, the United Nations Development Fund for Women and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, to develop and implement gender-sensitive strategies to address the particular needs of the girl child in education;

15. Reaffirms the critical role of quality education and lifelong learning for all in achieving poverty eradication and other develop ment goals, as envisaged in the 2030 Agenda, in particular free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education and training for eradicating illiteracy, efforts towards expanded secondary and higher education as well as vocational education and technical training, especially for girls and women, the creation of human resources and infrastructure capabilities and the empowerment of those living in poverty, also reaffirms in this context the __________________ Dakar Framework for Action, adopted at the World Education Forum on 28 April 2000, 21 and the Incheon Declaration: Education 2030: Towards inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning for all, adopted at the World Education Forum 2015, 22 and recognizes the importance of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization strategy for the eradication of poverty, especially extreme poverty, in supporting the Education for All programmes as tools for achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4 by 2030;

Noting that school meals and take-home rations attract and retain children in schools, and recognizing that school feeding is an incentive to enhance enrolment and reduce absenteeism, especially for girls,

44. We reaffirm our commitment to support developing country efforts to ensure that all children have access to and complete free and compulsory primary education of good quality, to eliminate gender inequality and imbalance and to renew efforts to improve girls’ education. We also commit ourselves to continuing to support the efforts of developing countries in the implementation of the Education for All initiative, including with enhanced resources of all types through the Education for All fast-track initiative in support of country-led national education plans.

8. Urges States to promote gender-sensitive, empowering educational processes, sensitive to the needs of women and girls, by reviewing and revising, as appropriate, school curricula, educational materials and teacher-training programmes and elaborating policies and programmes of zero tolerance of violence against girls or of harmful practices, including female genital mutilation, placing special emphasis on education about the harmful effects of female genital mutilation, and to further integrate a comprehensive understanding of the causes and consequences of gender- based violence and discrimination against women and girls into education and training curricula at all levels;

30. Stresses the need for the integration of the rights of children, girls and boys alike, in all policies and programmes and for ensuring the promotion and protection of those rights, especially in areas relating to health, education and the full development of their capacities;

12. Also calls upon States to develop policies and measures that promote access to education for persons with disabilities and to strengthen education systems that are fully inclusive of girls with disabilities to reduce the risk of social exclusion and poverty, which could have long-term implications for their capacity and opportunity to participate in labour markets;

41. Urges States, the international community, relevant United Nations entities, civil society and international financial institutions to continue to actively support, through the allocation of financial resources and technical assistance, efforts to address girls’ right and access to education;

49. Encourages efforts to provide safe and enabling learning environments and access to quality education for all, especially for girls and boys, in humanitarian emergencies caused by natural disasters, including in order to contribute to a smooth transition from relief to development;

37. Encourages efforts to provide safe and enabling learning environments and quality education for all, especially for girls and boys, in humanitarian emergencies caused by natural disasters, including in order to contribute to a smooth transition from relief to development;

13. Calls upon States to scale up scientifically accurate and age-appropriate comprehensive education, relevant to cultural contexts, that provides adolescent girls and boys and young women and men, in and out of school, consistent with their evolving capacities, and with appropriate direction and guidance from parents and legal guardians, with the best interests of the child as their basic concern, with information on sexual and reproductive health and HIV prevention, gender equality and women’s empowerment, human rights, physical, psychological and pubertal development and power in relationships between women and men, to enable them to build self-esteem and foster informed decision-making, communication and risk- reduction skills and to develop respectful relationships, in full partnership with young people, parents, legal guardians, caregivers, educators and health-care providers, in order to, inter alia, enable them protect themselves from HIV infection and other risks;

(d) To consider strengthening and implementing broadly based prevention and treatment programmes and to ensure that such programmes adequately address the gender-specific barriers that limit access for young girls and women, taking into account all attendant circumstances, including social and clinical histories, in the context of education, the family and the community, as appropriate;

39. Reaffirms the right to education for all and the importance of ensuring safe enabling learning environments in humanitarian emergencies, as well as quality education at all levels, including for girls, including technical and vocational training opportunities, where possible, including through adequate funding and infrastructural investments, for the well-being of all, in this regard recognizes that access to quality education in humanitarian emergencies can contribute to long-term development goals and reiterates the need to protect and respect educational facilities in accordance with international humanitarian law, strongly condemns all attacks directed against schools and the use of schools for military purposes, when in co ntravention of international humanitarian law, and encourages efforts to promote safe and protective school environments in humanitarian emergencies;

4. Calls upon States to promote and protect the right of women and girls to education through enhanced emphasis on quality education, including catch-up and literacy education for those who have not received formal education, while recognizing that education is one of the most effective ways to prevent and end child, early and forced marriage and to help married women and girls to make more informed choices about their lives;

17. Reaffirms the critical role of both formal and informal education in the achievement of poverty eradication and other development goals, as envisaged in the Millennium Declaration, in particular basic education and training for eradicating illiteracy, efforts towards expanded secondary and higher education as well as vocational education and technical training, especially for girls and women, the creation of human resources and infrastructure capabilities and the empowerment of those living in poverty, reaffirms in this context the Dakar Framework for Action, adopted at the World Education Forum on 28 April 2000, 20