The burden of girlhood : A global inquiry into the status of girls

Historically, the status of girls has evoked much less interest than that of women. In international development studies and strategies, girls have remained, for the most part, invisible. Recently, an emerging scholastic and strategic concern with the greater vulnerability of girls than boys, and the impact the neglect of girls has on the regressive status of women, is adding a vital missing link to the discourse on women and development. At the end of three development decades and at the mid-point of the fourth, and on the eve of the Fourth United Nations World Conference on Women (Beijing, September 4-15, 1995), it is clear that the situation regarding girls requires radical change in order for a lasting difference to be made regarding the status of women. This book examines the status of girls and demonstrates that acculturation and development processes favour boys rather than girls. On account of their age and gender, girls experience the consequences of gender discrimination even more than women, and the burden of this discrimination is borne by girls universally, irrespective of societal or personal socioeconomic levels. Recognizing that girlhood precedes, presages, and defines womanhood, the book seeks to explain to development's strategists and scholars, as well as to feminists, that the key to women's development lies in the extent to which girls are protected, nurtured, and empowered. It draws on comparative cross-cultural data to establish the greater vulnerability of girls in various sectors of human development....