We Must End Violence Against Women, Girls – Sheriff

Posted by Eric Ojo African News, Latest Headlines Saturday, November 26th, 2022

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – Director of Education Cannot Wait (ECW), Yasmine Sherif has harped on the need for the international community to take concretes and pragmatic steps toward ending violence against women and girls.

ECW is the United Nations (UN) global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises. It supports quality education outcomes for refugee, internally displaced and other crisis-affected girls and boys, so no one is left behind.

The organization, also works through the multilateral system to both increase the speed of responses in crises and connect immediate relief and longer-term interventions through multi-year programming. ECW works in close partnership with governments, public and private donors, UN agencies, civil society organizations, and other humanitarian and development aid actors to increase efficiencies and end silted responses.

Sheriff made the observation in a statement issued to mark this year’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and #16Days of Activism.

She said since humanity have entered the 21st century, it is imperatively to collectively end violence against girls and women, adding that attacking and abusing them is another form of warfare.

According to her, the war-machinery or domestic violence as a result of crisis, is absolutely abhorrent and unacceptable.

“Exposing half of the world’s population to the risks of violence because of their gender is not only a violation of international and domestic laws, but a disgraceful and brute breach of our very own humanity.

With our strategic partners across the globe, ECW commemorates the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and joins 16 Days of Activism Campaign with a solemn promise to leverage the power of education to protect girls and women everywhere from being disempowered and subjected to horrific attacks and fears thereof”, she said.

Worldwide, 222 million crisis-affected children and adolescents are in need of urgent education support. Barriers to girls’ education such as armed conflicts, forced displacement, the climate crisis, COVID-19 and other factors have left 129 million girls worldwide out of school.

In countries affected by fragility, conflict and violence, girls are 2.5 times more likely to be out of school than boys, and they are 90 percent more likely to be out of secondary school than those in non-conflict-impacted environments. Of deep concern is recent data indicating that approximately 60 million girls are sexually assaulted on their way to or at school every year.

Describing such abhorrent violence against girls as a travesty of all humankind, the ECW director also observed that the denial of education to girls in places like Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Yemen and beyond is in and of itself, is an act of violence.

“It is a moral affront to our collective efforts to build a more equal world and realize the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. Education is our single best tool in our efforts to protect girls and women from violence. Safe and protective learning environments insulate girls from sexual assaults, childhood marriage, early pregnancy, forced labour and other senseless violations of their human rights.

“To achieve this, we must get every girl – everywhere – into safe learning environments. We must provide physical protection, including safe passage to and from school. We must advocate for cultural shifts that embrace girls as equals and support access to education from early childhood straight through to the university.

And we must advocate for legal protection and an end of impunity.

“At ECW, we include protection for girls as a central component in all our investments supporting joint programming in the education sector. World leaders, and public and private sector donors everywhere will have an opportunity to contribute to end violence against girls and adolescent girls, showing their support for girls’ education – and the power it has to end violence against girls – by committing funding support at the Education Cannot Wait High-Level Financing Conference on 16-17 February 2023 in Geneva”, she stressed.