Au­ro­ra Noguera-Ramkissoon

Li­ai­son Of­fi­cer, Trinidad and To­ba­go

Sub-re­gion­al Of­fice for the Caribbean, UNF­PA

The In­ter­na­tion­al Day of the Girl Child, which was com­mem­o­rat­ed on Oc­to­ber 11, was first ob­served in 2012 by the Unit­ed Na­tions, fo­cus­ing at­ten­tion on the chal­lenges girls face and pro­mot­ing girls’ em­pow­er­ment and the ful­fill­ment of their rights. The 1995 Bei­jing De­c­la­ra­tion and Plat­form for Ac­tion set the tone for this day by pro­vid­ing a frame­work for ad­vanc­ing the rights of not on­ly women but al­so girls.

This year com­mem­o­rates the 10th an­niver­sary of the In­ter­na­tion­al Day of the Girl Child, un­der the theme - “Our time is now—our rights, our fu­ture”.

UNF­PA has tak­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to fo­cus on the is­sue of child mar­riage, in­clud­ing ear­ly unions, which are non-for­mal mar­riages or com­mon law mar­riages, which are pre­dom­i­nant­ly among girls and their adult male part­ners. UNF­PA, along with its UN sis­ter agency, UNICEF, have been lead­ing the charge glob­al­ly to end child mar­riage and ear­ly unions.

Sig­nif­i­cance to the Caribbean and Trinidad and To­ba­go in par­tic­u­lar

For the Caribbean and Trinidad and To­ba­go in par­tic­u­lar, this is­sue is al­so per­ti­nent giv­en the ex­is­tence of child mar­riages, ear­ly unions, ear­ly sex­u­al ini­ti­a­tion (which can make girls vul­ner­a­ble to child mar­riage as well as eco­nom­ic in­equal­i­ties and be­hav­iours that pro­mote in­equal­i­ty). From con­sul­ta­tions held by Gov­ern­ment and Civ­il So­ci­ety pri­or to the amend­ment of the Mar­riage Act in Trinidad and To­ba­go in 2017, we not­ed that girls were dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly im­pact­ed by child mar­riage, with male part­ners, in most cas­es, who were adults. The ev­i­dence prompt­ed the Hin­du Women’s Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go to lead the cam­paign and a pe­ti­tion to end child mar­riage. This cam­paign was sup­port­ed by sev­er­al oth­er Women-led civ­il so­ci­ety or­ga­ni­za­tions.

While child mar­riage has end­ed in Trinidad and To­ba­go, ear­ly unions or com­mon law arrange­ments among girls and men still ex­ist, not on­ly in Trinidad and To­ba­go, but with­in the Caribbean as well. Many of these sit­u­a­tions arise from in­equal­i­ties and fi­nan­cial dis­par­i­ties. For UNF­PA, we have been fo­cus­ing on in­vest­ing in the ado­les­cent girl so that she can suc­cess­ful­ly tran­si­tion from ado­les­cence to adult­hood.

What have been some set­backs for girls’ ad­vance­ment?

COVID-19 ex­ac­er­bat­ed the dis­par­i­ties of op­por­tu­ni­ties for young girls. While we note the ad­vances girls have made in ed­u­ca­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Caribbean at large, poor­er girls and those fac­ing abuse in the homes, are at risk of these ear­ly unions. Girls who are providers in their home and take on tra­di­tion­al roles of cook­ing, clear­ing, car­ing for their sib­lings, fam­i­ly, have and face ad­di­tion­al bar­ri­ers to ed­u­ca­tion and ful­fill­ing their full po­ten­tial. Hence the need to ad­dress both eco­nom­ic and gen­der in­equal­i­ty, so that girls in low­er so­cio-eco­nom­ic cir­cum­stances have more op­tions for suc­cess­ful­ly tran­si­tion­ing to adult­hood.

Why is there a fo­cus on the “girl child”?

We have this spe­cial day fo­cus­ing on girls, be­cause in­equal­i­ty still ex­ists.

UNF­PA par­tic­u­lar­ly fo­cus­es on the 10-year-old girl as she ap­proach­es ado­les­cents there are a num­ber of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties, she may face in mak­ing the safe tran­si­tion to adult­hood.

For mil­lions of ado­les­cents around the world, the on­set of pu­ber­ty brings not on­ly changes to their bod­ies but al­so ex­po­sure to ad­di­tion­al hu­man rights abuse. Mil­lions of girls are co­erced in­to un­want­ed sex or mar­riage, putting them at risk of sex­u­al­ly trans­mit­ted in­fec­tions (STIs) in­clud­ing HIV, un­want­ed preg­nan­cies, un­safe abor­tions, and dan­ger­ous child­birth.

Re­search shows that ado­les­cents in the Caribbean con­tin­ue to be sex­u­al­ly ac­tive, de­spite parental, school and com­mu­ni­ty-based, gov­ern­men­tal, and var­i­ous na­tion­al pro­gram­mat­ic ef­forts to de­lay sex­u­al ac­tiv­i­ty. The Caribbean re­gion­al con­text is marked by ear­ly sex­u­al de­but with a mean age of 14 years for the first sex­u­al en­counter, as well as dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly high rates of HIV and STI in­fec­tions among ado­les­cents and oth­er vul­ner­a­ble groups.

The 2017 World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion Stu­dent Health Sur­vey in­di­cat­ed that in Trinidad, 28.8% of ado­les­cents be­tween the ages of 13 and 17 were sex­u­al­ly ac­tive, with 55.9% found to have had first sex­u­al in­ter­course be­fore the age of 14.

Ado­les­cent girls have the right to a safe, ed­u­cat­ed, and healthy life, not on­ly dur­ing these crit­i­cal for­ma­tive years, but al­so as they ma­ture in­to women. If ef­fec­tive­ly sup­port­ed dur­ing the ado­les­cent years, girls have the po­ten­tial to change the world – both as the em­pow­ered girls of to­day and as to­mor­row’s work­ers, moth­ers, en­tre­pre­neurs, men­tors, house­hold heads, and po­lit­i­cal lead­ers. An in­vest­ment in re­al­iz­ing the pow­er of ado­les­cent girls up­holds their rights to­day and promis­es a more eq­ui­table and pros­per­ous fu­ture, one in which half of hu­man­i­ty is an equal part­ner in solv­ing the prob­lems of cli­mate change, po­lit­i­cal con­flict, eco­nom­ic growth, dis­ease pre­ven­tion, and glob­al sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

The 2030 Agen­da for Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment and its 17 Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals (SDGs) adopt­ed by world lead­ers in 2015, em­body a roadmap for progress that is sus­tain­able and leaves no one be­hind. Achiev­ing gen­der equal­i­ty and women’s em­pow­er­ment is in­te­gral to each of the 17 goals. On­ly by en­sur­ing the rights of women and girls across all the goals, will we get to jus­tice and in­clu­sion, economies that work for all, and sus­tain­ing our shared en­vi­ron­ment now and for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.