18.01.2021 -news
Adolescent girls at the centre
In May 2020, GAGE was involved in an AGIP (Adolescent Girls Investment Plan) initiative to draft a joint paper 'adolescent girls at the centre', calling for concerted efforts to put adolescent girls at the centre of developing the Action Coalition process as part of Generation Equality. AGIP highlights priority areas for the movement to be responsive to adolescent girls in the current pandemic and beyond. The joint paper is authored by the following members of the Adolescent Girls Investment Plan (AGIP): Girls Not Brides, Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE/ODI), ICRW, IPPF, Malala Fund, Plan International, Women Deliver.
Download the joint paper
Adolescence is a critical period of great transition for girls. It is a unique window when life changing events happen and offers a distinct opportunity to break cycles of poverty and deprivation. However, for girls in the global South, early adolescence (10-14) is typically a period where their worlds shrink and opportunities are curtailed due to norms and expectations of their social environments – their mobility becomes limited to protect their sexual ‘purity’ and family honour, they take on care and domestic work, drop out of school, abandon their friendships and networks, and may become married. The double discrimination they face due to their gender and age is compounded by poverty and other factors of discrimination such as disability, sexual identity or ethnicity. Often, they enter adulthood already at a severe disadvantage as a result of violence, early pregnancy, child marriage and limited opportunities for education and employment. Adolescence also offers a unique opportunity to reap a triple dividend for adolescent girls now, for their adult trajectories, and for their children’s futures. The benefits of investing in adolescent girls’ healthy, safe and successful transition to adulthood have a positive impact on wider society over the long term, and on the overall achievement of gender equality.
However, the global crisis brought about by
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