International Day of the Girl Child 2018 opens

The International Day of the Girl Child is celebrated annually on October 11th at UN headquarters to promote girl’s empowerment and fulfillment of their human rights, while also highlighting the challenges that girls all over the world face.

This year’s event themed “With her: a Skilled Girlforce” lays emphasis on education and skill enhancement required for the girl child today so that she enters the workforce fully skilled, up-to-date with technology and digitalization, a decade from now.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in his message stated: “Today, 600 million adolescent girls are preparing to enter a world of work transformed by innovation and automation. They are the largest generation in history and a vast source of ideas and solutions for all career fields. However, girls are mostly not given the space and opportunities they need to achieve their full potential. Multiple barriers exist, including systematic discrimination, biases and lack of training".

He added, "We need concerted efforts to overcome the obstacles that mean that, for example, women make up less than 30 per cent of graduates in information and communications technology and occupy less than 30 per cent of research and development jobs worldwide."

The International Day of the Girl Child was launched in 2012 by the United Nations./.