On 11 October there is the global celebration of the International Day of the Girl Child. This year’s theme is: Our Time is Now – Our Rights, Our Future!
When half of the human community consist of women and children, it is right and just that they demand parity. The UN highlights the need for respecting the human and fundamental rights of girls on this International Day. Governments, policy makers and general public are called upon to provide more opportunities and space for girls to air their grievances and needs, hopes and aspirations.
Often womenfolk remain at the receiving end with insult and unjust treatment when they ask for better human treatment. The recent incident in India’s northern state of Bihar, involving a lady IAS officer treating a girl student with insult, went viral. The occasion was reportedly a girl asking the officer if the government could provide sanitary pads too since it is already providing school dress, scholarships and bicycles. The reply she got from the Indian Administrative Officer, Harjot Kaur Bamhrah, Principal Secretary, and head of Bihar Women and Child Development Corporation was not a decent one by any standards. The insulting reply was: At this rate, you will ask for condom too.’ If such is the standard of our IAS officers, especially women officers, lowering their standard with unappreciable and unpalatable words, what hope adolescent girls can expect for their future.
It is in the post Covid era girls will face hurdles and challenges when it comes to their education, health and development. It is unfortunate that some fundamentalist countries are denying girls’ education. In war-torn countries they have a bleak future or they become migrants and vagrants.
It is important that we as educators, pastors, and policy makers recognise girls as future administrators, bureaucrats, civil servants, advocates, educators, engineers etc., and provide platform to flower forth so that they can participate effectively in shaping the world into a liveable and loveable one.