On 20 November 2009, the global community celebrates the 20th anniversary of the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the unique document that sets international standards for the care, treatment and protection of all individuals below age 18. To celebrate this landmark, the United Nations Children's Fund is dedicating a special edition of its flagship report The State of the World's Children to examining the Convention's evolution, progress achieved on child rights, challenges remaining, and actions to be taken to ensure that its promise becomes a reality for all children.
The case for narrowing the gender gap is well established, and programs seeking to empower women in sub-Saharan Africa have multiplied. Yet a critical piece is missing: a focus on rural girls from zero to ten years old. Discrimination and social norms that penalize girls and women do not start at adolescence, and by the time many rural girls are 10, it is often too late to undo the damage that has already been done. As an African woman leader who has grown up on the African soil, Joyce Banda, Malawi's first female president and Africa's second, has seen firsthand how young rural girls face obstacles in areas that are critical in shaping their future. This book makes the case of how, if African girls are to realize their potential as leaders and change the narrative of their continent, gender interventions should and can be started from day one. For we cannot to leave any girl behind.
"One out of two girls in Malawi will be married by her eighteenth birthday. Some are as young as 9 or 10 when they are married. Child marriage violates the rights of girls and women. It increases Malawi's high levels of poverty, illiteracy, and maternal mortality. It widens marked gender gaps in education. Many Malawian families see marriage as a way to improve their economic status, sometimes through payment of a dowry, or through continued support by their daughter's husband. Child marriage is also deeply entrenched in Malawi's traditions and patriarchal culture. "I've never experienced happiness," based on in-depth interviews with 80 girls and women in six districts in Malawi, examines how child marriage negatively shapes the experiences, status, and security of Malawian girls and women, and limits their development. It shows how the practice violates their rights to health and education, freedom from physical, mental, and sexual violence, and their right to marry only when they can give their free and full consent. Human Rights Watch recommends the Malawian government adopt a comprehensive approach to child marriage. This should include legal reforms and programmatic initiatives that effectively address the causes and consequences of child marriage, as well as protection for girls and women who seek redress through the justice system. Reforms are urgently needed to reduce the far-reaching harms of child marriage and its negative implications for Malawi's future development"--Page [4] of cover.
Bringing together feminist analyses of economic processes and outcomes with feminist critiques of Orientalism, this book examines the diverse economic realities facing women in a range of Muslim communities. This approach pays special attention to the role of Islam in economic analyses of gender equality and women’s well-being in Muslim communities, while at the same time challenging biased and inaccurate accounts that essentialize Islam. Nuanced case studies conducted in Bangladesh, Iran, Israel, Nigeria, and Turkey illustrate the historical and institutional diversity of Muslim communities and draw vivid pictures of the everyday economic lives of Muslim women in these communities. These studies are complemented by quantitative analyses that extend beyond inserting Islam as a dummy variable. The contributions represent a wide range of disciplines, including anthropology, economics, gender studies, political science, psychology, and sociology. By placing critiques of Orientalist scholarship in direct dialogue with scholarship on economic development in Muslim contexts, this diverse collection illustrates how different methods and frameworks can work together to provide a better understanding of gender equality and women’s well-being in Muslim contexts. In doing so, the authors aim to facilitate conversations among feminist scholars across disciplines in order to provide a more nuanced picture of the situation facing women in Muslim communities. This book was originally published as a special issue of Feminist Economics.
This open access handbook, the first of its kind, provides a comprehensive and carefully curated multidisciplinary and genre-spanning view of the state of the field of Critical Menstruation Studies, opening up new directions in research and advocacy. It is animated by the central question: ‘“what new lines of inquiry are possible when we center our attention on menstrual health and politics across the life course?” The chapters—diverse in content, form and perspective—establish Critical Menstruation Studies as a potent lens that reveals, complicates and unpacks inequalities across biological, social, cultural and historical dimensions. This handbook is an unmatched resource for researchers, policy makers, practitioners, and activists new to and already familiar with the field as it rapidly develops and expands.
Social rights are a pivotal concern for all of society, including today’s population of children. The study of the rights, or lack thereof, that children have must be undertaken to ensure that future generations are thriving members of their communities. Global Ideologies Surrounding Children's Rights and Social Justice highlights the trials and tribulations that children have often had to overcome to be considered true citizens of their communities. Featuring comprehensive coverage on a wide range of applicable topics such as child abuse, socio-economic rights, social injustice, and welfare issues, this is a critical reference source for educators, academicians, students, and researchers interested in studying new approaches for the social advancement of children.
