The report, released ahead of the 64th session of the Commission on the Status of Women, notes that the number of out-of-school girls has dropped by 79 million in the last two decades. In fact, girls became more likely to be in secondary school than boys in just the last decade.

But violence against women and girls is still common.

In 2016, women and girls accounted for 70 percent of detected trafficking victims globally, most for sexual exploitation.

An astonishing 1 in every 20 girls aged 15-19 – around 13 million – has experienced rape in their lifetimes.

UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said the commitment of world’s governments have only been partially fulfilled.

She said the world has come up embarrassingly short on equipping girls with skills and support they need not only to shape their own destinies, but to live in safety and dignity.

Fore said we also need to change people’s behaviours and attitudes towards girls. “True equality will only come when all girls are safe from violence, free to exercise their rights, and are able to enjoy equal opportunities in life.”

The report, A New Era for Girls: Taking stock on 25 years of progress, is issued in the context of the Generation Equality campaign and to mark the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action – the historic blueprint for advancing women’s and girls’ rights.

Plan International Chief Executive Officer Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen said adolescent girls, in particular, suffer heightened discrimination as a result of their age and gender and yet continue to be sidelined in their communities and in decision-making spaces, largely invisible in government policy.

UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said although we have increasingly heard girls assert their rights and call us to account, the world has not kept up with their expectations.

She noted as long as women and girls have to use three times the time and energy of men on looking after the household, equal opportunities for girls to move from school into good jobs in safe workplaces are going to be out of reach.

“For everyone’s sake that’s got to change,” she said. “Along with making sure that the skills girls learn are right for the new tech and digital jobs of the future, and that violence against them ends.”

Photo:Collected

Girls today are at a startling risk of violence in every space. The report notes that harmful practices such as child marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM) continue to disrupt and damage the lives and potential of millions of girls globally.

Each year, 12 million girls are married in childhood, and 4 million are at risk of FGM. Globally, girls aged 15-19 are as likely to justify wife-beating as boys of the same age.

The report also points to concerning negative trends for girls in nutrition and health.

Meanwhile, the last 25 years have seen growing concerns about poor mental health fuelled in part by excessive use of digital technologies. The report notes that suicide is currently the second leading cause of death among adolescent girls aged 15-19, surpassed only by maternal conditions.

Girls also remain at high risk of sexually-transmitted infections, including HIV, with 970,000 adolescent girls aged 10-19 living with HIV today compared to 740,000 girls in 1995.

The report recommended expanding opportunities for girls, increasing policy and programme investments and boosting investments in production, analysis and use of high-quality age- and sex-disaggregated data and research in areas where knowledge is limited.