Across the World: A Girl’s Right to Learn Without Fear

Girls are especially vulnerable to rape, exploitation, coercion and discrimination perpetrated by students and teachers. ‘A girl’s right to learn without fear’ looks at the issues and presents solutions which are drawn from existing policy examples, as well as global civil society campaigns, international instruments and the voices of girls themselves. This reports surveys regions as diverse as Sub-Saharan African, Asia and the Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, Latin American and the Caribbean, Europe and Central Asia as well as North America.

Since 2000 there has been a focus on achieving universal access to primary education and gender parity as part of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Yet as we approach 2015, which was the target for achieving the MDGs, many girls are failing to undertake and complete a quality lower secondary education. Even though, in the words of former UN Secretary-General Ko Annan, “there is no tool for development more effective than the education of girls”, 66 million girls are missing out on the education that could transform their own lives and the world around them.

Between 500 million and 1.5 billion children experience violence every year, many within school walls. Plan calls on governments to prioritize actions tied to 8 key principles to ensure that all children can learn free from violence, and that girls benefit from their equal right to education.

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