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

Vision of the mandate 2014, para. 29

Paragraph text: As farm labourers, vendors and unpaid care workers, women are responsible for food preparation and production in many countries and regions throughout the world and play a vital role in food security and nutrition. However, women and girls continue to be disproportionately affected by poverty and malnutrition. Women in rural areas are particularly affected, as female-headed households continue to grow, exceeding 30 per cent in some developing countries, with women owning only 2 per cent of agricultural land and with limited access to productive resources. In many low-income countries, women are the backbone of the rural economy and 79 per cent of economically active women in the least developed countries consider agriculture as their primary source of income. Agrarian land reform legislation often discriminates against women by entitling only men over a certain age to land ownership while women's entitlement only applies in cases where they are household heads. Such discriminatory practices prevent women in many countries from asserting their economic independence and being able to feed themselves and their families.

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Paragraph text: In addition to expanding their economic opportunities in later life, higher enrolment rates for girls delay marriage and can thus lower the number of children a woman has, therefore enabling more women to seek employment with higher incomes. Low levels of education and early marriage create a vicious cycle in which women have many children and thus reduced opportunities for improving their education and seeking employment outside the home. Higher levels of education means women can take control over their fertility and be able to make informed decisions in terms of their sexual health and family planning, resulting in fewer children and improved economic opportunities.

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Paragraph text: Another successful example is the female school stipend programme introduced by the Government of Punjab, Pakistan, in 2004, as part of the broader Punjab Education Sector Reform Programme (PESRP), inaugurated in 2003. In targeted districts defined by their low literacy rate, the female school stipend programme provides girls a stipend (an amount slightly higher than the average cost of schooling), conditional on class attendance. An early study of the impacts of this stipend found a modest but statistically significant impact on girls' attendance of schools.

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