Two girls walk home from school in a rural area in southern KwaZulu Natal province, South Africa. Many rural schools are located far from the children’s homes and girls are at risk from attack as they walk along remote pathways. c Per-Anders Pettersson/Getty Images)

Education is a crucial step in this journey. It is crucial to breaking cycles of poverty, violence and disease. Education is a human right, and therefore every girl’s right.

As the 100 year anniversary of International Women’s Day draws close, and 60 years after human rights were enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, girls across the world find a range of barriers to education:

• Girls are assaulted on the way to school, attacked in schools grounds and teased by their classmates. Some are threatened with sexual assault by other students, coerced into sex by teachers, even raped in the staff room.
• In countries wracked by war, girls are at risk from armed groups and from attacks on their schools. Sexual abuse and exploitation are problems for girls living in refugee camps or displaced people’s camps.
• Certain girls face an increased risk of violence at school. Certain aspects of girls’ identities, including their sexuality, status as migrants, orphans or refugees, caste, ethnicity and race, can increase their risk of abuse.
• Although free primary education should be available to all children, schools around the world commonly charge user fees. Girls are more likely to be excluded than boys when there isn’t enough money to go round.
  

Violence leads to countless girls being kept out of school, dropping out, or not fully participating in school life. Effects range from pain and fear, to lowered self-esteem, sexually transmitted infections, unwanted pregnancies and depression. In many cases, abuses go unreported.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that girls often choose not to report what continues to be a taboo issue in some societies, or for fear of retaliation. That leaves such acts under-reported and allows their perpetrators to go unpunished.

There is no justification for the lack of action. The issue is not about resources but political will. Governments, teachers and school authorities must work to prevent violence against girls in schools, must promptly investigate reports of abuse, impose appropriate punishments on offenders, support those who have suffered from violence to recover and ensure that such abuses do not recur.

Join Amnesty International’s campaign to protect girls’ rights to safety, equality and education. Make schools safe for girls.

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Key facts on violence against girls at school

• A study in the USA found that 83 per cent of girls in grades 8 to 11 (aged around 12 to 16) in public schools experienced some form of sexual harassment.
• According to a 2006 study of schoolgirls in Malawi, 50 per cent of the girls said they had been touched in a sexual manner “without permission, by either their teachers or fellow schoolboys”.
• In Latin America, sexual harassment in schools has been found to be widespread in the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Panama, among other countries.
• In a survey of girls in Zimbabwean junior secondary schools, 50 per cent of girls reported unsolicited sexual contact on the way to school by strangers, and 92 per cent of girls reported being propositioned by older men.
• Forty per cent of the 77 million school-age children not attending school live in conflict-affected areas.
• In Afghanistan, burning down schools, particularly girls’ schools, and threatening or assaulting girls who attend school have become increasingly common in recent years. At least 172 violent attacks on schools took place in the first six months of 2006.
• Girls who are members of racial or ethnic minorities or who are Indigenous may be targeted for violence and face particular barriers to education. For example, Romani girls in several European countries face obstacles to education, including discrimination, high rates of poverty, patriarchal traditions which result in lower expectations for girls and early drop-outs, family obligations, and early marriages.
  

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