Fight continues for dignity, education and sexuality of young girls around the world
New York, US (PANA) - The dignity of girls and their sexual health were at the heart of the International Day of the Girl Child on 11 October, during which the UN organised a discussion led by the President of the General Assembly, Annalena Baerbock, with young women human rights defenders, Member States, and UN agencies. Cécile Mazzacurati, Gender Advisor at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), was present.
Speaking to UN News , Ms. Mazzacurati explains why these themes are essential to promoting gender equality around the world, particularly in the areas of education, family and personal dignity.
Present on all continents, the agency's priority is "comprehensive sexuality education", which concerns "children, adolescents, and young people on everything related to their bodies, their bodily autonomy, their sexuality", according to Ms. Mazzacurati.
The actions of UNFPA, both on the legal and social level, with the communities on the ground, resonate particularly with the issue of gender equality, because it is nothing less than taking ownership, or reclaiming ownership, of one's body, often as a girl or young woman.
As an example, the Empower programme, funded by Canada and implemented by UNFPA, has enabled young people from Benin, Ghana, Malawi, Argentina and other countries to benefit from training to grow up "in full control and knowledge of their bodies, their desires, in healthy and respectful relationships," according to the UNFPA Advisor.
The promotion of sex education, often taboo or poorly communicated, goes far beyond reproductive health issues. It forms the trunk from which the multiple branches of a young woman's social, intimate and economic life extend.
Talking to a girl or adolescent about the right to control her body, her menstruation, consent or pregnancy, will improve her life and her equality with boys, including her relationship to school, her family issues, or her dignity, especially in situations of precarity or conflict.
Education is one of UNFPA's priorities for achieving gender equality worldwide, given the 129 million girls who are currently out of school. This issue is closely linked to the sexual health of young girls, who, due to menstruation, early marriage, or pregnancy before the age of 18, may face greater difficulties in attending school.
"These young girls, when they are married so young, no longer go to school because they are already considered as women and very quickly, they will become pregnant," notes Cécile Mazzacurati.
"In some countries, it's even the law," she adds.
While one in five girls in the world is married before the age of 18, or even one in three in some regions of the world like the Sahel, Ms. Mazzacurati explains that one of the strategies of UNFPA, carried out jointly with UNICEF , is to allow girls to go to school longer: "Because an educated girl is a girl who will have children much later, her children will themselves be better educated, will be healthier and her whole family will have a better economic status."
With the world experiencing more conflict than ever since the end of World War II, it is all the more essential to support displaced or refugee girls, who face particular difficulties related to their gender.
“If you’re a young girl in a refugee camp and you get your first period, you need menstrual pads, but maybe there aren’t any. You need access to a toilet with a door that can be closed, but maybe there aren’t any. Maybe there isn’t even running water. These are simple things that can become extremely complicated,” explains Ms. Mazzacurati. And that’s not even counting family separations, the interruption of education, and the rise in arranged marriages due to the precarious situation.
It is for all these reasons that UNFPA acts in different ways in refugee camps, with for example "dignity kits" equipped with hygiene products, "safe places" for exchange, distance educational programs or even lit and separate toilets, specifically dedicated to women.
Cécile Mazzacurati concludes that despite current counter-currents on gender equality and women's rights, we must resist.
She states: "These are all very important issues that are sometimes seen as secondary because they also touch on subjects that we prefer not to talk about. And we really need to keep moving forward and fighting for ourselves, for our sisters, for our friends, and for all girls in every country in the world."
-0- PANA MA 9Nov2025
