Women's Education in developing countries

In the article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is declared that “Everyone has the right to education” (UN, 1948).

Regardless of the development of civilization, girls and women are still discriminated against in accessing education and within education systems. As stated by the UNICEF (2013), ‘State of the World’s Children report’, 65 million girls in the world are being deprived of an education. Also two thirds of illiterate adults are women. In the numerous underdeveloped countries, education is not considered as a guaranteed right and frequently is an exclusive privilege to obtain an education of any level.

Causes of illiteracy:
In the developing countries are numerous obstacles to girls' education like: poverty, pregnancy, child marriage and discriminatory gender. Moreover, school fees, the risk of violence on the way to school or in school and the alleged benefits of girls’ domestic work are keeping girls uneducated. Very often, pregnancy and child marriage cut short adolescent girls’ education before they have finished secondary school.

Benefits of women's education:

Education is one of the most significant global resources and it has to be easily reached for women and men. By helping women to achieve their education potential, the future of humankind will be stronger. Accepting of women to have equal rights and treatment in developing countries has a diversity of benefits. Reducing workplace discrimination involve more women could work as an alternative of being outsiders to the progress of a country. Expansion of the career opportunities and general rights for women may also conduct to more investment from developed countries who can find more cultural relationship with the developing country. Moreover, researches have revealed that women are better at spending money in ways that benefit children than men. Unfortunately, around the world, women are earning considerably less (24%) than men. (Sifferlin, 2015).

In the developing countries, empowering women could create enormous human capital resources, resulting decreasing of poverty, generating new businesses and also the existent industries could be invigorated.

The Australian charity organization "One Girl" also added that " The longer a girl is educated, the greater the benefits" (2016).

Uneducated women have no control over their reproductive lives and this implies larger families and less healthy children. Researchers have revealed that the health of children relies very much on the level of education of their mothers (Cleve-Mosse, 1993: 83). The programs for children's protection can be easier put into practice when the mothers are capable of reading the medical instructions that may save a child 's life. For example, a literate women could deal better with the precarious situations caused by diarrhoea. A child's life can rely on the mother's capability to prepare an oral rehydration formula in the proportions shown on the medication's label.

In South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa children whose mothers have received secondary schooling are twice as possible to be immunized against major disease as those whose mothers had not been to school. Knowledgeable women offer improved nutrition to their children, and their awareness of health risks defend their families against diseases and encourages health-seeking behaviour more generally. That way, child mortality rates are higher in families where the mother has no education compared with families where both parents have attended school. For instance, In sub-Saharan Africa, children whose mothers have more than seven years of education have less than half the under 5 mortality rate of the children of uneducated women. With uneducated mothers, there is probability of children developing malnutrition, in particular children less than three years old who are malnourished (Watkins, 2010).

In line with the EFA GMR World Inequity Database in Education, in 10 countries across the globe, no more than half of the poorest girls enter school, and also in 10 countries, nine out of ten of the poorest girls have not completed school (Rose, 2012).

Source: EFA GMR’s World Inequality Database in Education (WIDE)

Somalia is one of the brutal places in the world to be a girl. Poverty and conflict are having an intense psychological impact on them. Many families relies on the girls to provide an income. Also physical and psychological aggression towards girls is prevalent in Somali schools. (Gray, 2016)

The organization "Save the Children" (2013) shown that based on UN data, there were more than 3,600 separate, documented attacks on education in 2012, purposely targeting female scholars. Unfortunately, the number of recorded attacks on education has increased in recent years to 10.000 (Coughlan, 2014). Girls faced acts of violence, torture and threats on an ongoing basis. In many situations, children were badly injured or were killed during those attacks on education.







Sadly, in 2014, kidnapping of 300 Nigerian girls, is an example of an attack on education for young student girls. Boko Haram militants kidnapped these young girls simply because they were going to school.




What it has been done for the realization of the women's right to education?

The former United Nations Secretary Kofi Annan has said that “educating girls is not an option, it is a necessity". Therefore 189 countries that signed up for the Education for All project in 2000, led by UNESCO, confirmed their support by pledging to eliminate gender disparities in education in near future.




President Jim Kim announced last year that the World Bank Group will invest over the next 5 years 2.5 billion dollars in education programs, directly benefiting adolescent girls. "This was in response to a call from U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama for more support to adolescent girls’ education. Since then, the WBG had already committed $530 million in three high-need countries: Lebanon, Pakistan, and Nigeria." (WBG, 2016)

In the world are also charity organizations dedicated to helping educate girls and women in developing countries. Some are small and others are large. They focus on one country and others on various countries. Every one is concentrating on activities like cultural exchange, training teachers, providing education and stimulating external involvement.

Some examples:

"One Girl" collaborate with well established implementing partners who have a long history of delivering high quality education programs across Africa. They are presently working with the crew at Restless Development, CORD, One Girl Sierra Leone and Uganda. (One Girl, 2013).


                            

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI_rjEHClro&feature=youtu.be

Throughout Africa Educational Trust's projects, the members of this organization are building education systems that will provide education for everyone, while meeting also the needs of people who have battled to access education. (AET, 2014)

Despite progress, the discrimination will still continue in some countries. There has been governmental and nongovernmental contributions in improving situations, so that women will thus have an education. Unfortunately, with all the structural adjustment projects, this problem will continue to be a major one.

References:

2015, A.C. (2016) FACTSHEET: How many schoolgirls did Boko Haram abduct and how many are still missing? Available at: https://africacheck.org/factsheets/factsheet-how-many-schoolgirls-did-boko-haram-abduct-and-how-many-are-still-missing/ (Accessed: 6 January 2017).

Coughlan, S. (2014) How many attacks on schools around the world? Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-30512451 (Accessed: 6 January 2017)

Mosse-Cleves, J. Half The World, Half The Chance: An Introduction to Gender and Development. Alden Press, Oxford. 1993: pp-80-83.

Educating girls in Africa (2016). Available at: http://www.onegirl.org.au/ (Accessed: 5 January 2017).

Gray, D. (2016) Education for girls in Somalia: Faduma’s story. Available at: http://blog.concern.net/education-for-girls-in-somalia (Accessed: 6 January 2017).

Rose, P. (2012) The bottom ten countries for female education. Available at: https://gemreportunesco.wordpress.com/2012/11/09/the-bottom-ten-countries-for-female-education/ (Accessed: 6 January 2017).

Save the Children (2013) Attacks on education. Available at: https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/sites/default/files/docs/Attacks_on_Education_2.pdf (Accessed: 6 January 2017)

Sifferlin, A. (2015) Women earn 24% less than men on average, U.N. Report finds. Available at: http://time.com/3836977/un-women-wages-and-careers/ (Accessed: 5 January 2017)

Simon Davis (2015) Image. US First Lady, Michelle Obama, speaking at Mulberry School for Girls, London. Available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dfid/18673469409 (Accessed: 7 January 2017).

UNICEF (2012) Girls’ education and gender equality. Available at: https://www.unicef.org/education/bege_70640.html (Accessed: 5 January 2017).

Universal declaration of human rights (1948) Available at: http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/index.html (Accessed: 5 January 2017).

Watkins, K. (2010) When learning saves lives: Education and child mortality. Available at: https://gemreportunesco.wordpress.com/2010/04/12/when-education-saves-lives/ (Accessed: 6 January 2017).

WBG (2016) Letting girls learn: WBG helps advance education for adolescent girls. Available at: http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2016/10/11/letting-girls-learn-wbg-helps-advance-education-for-adolescent-girls (Accessed: 6 January 2017)

What we do (2014) Available at: http://africaeducationaltrust.org/what-we-do/ (Accessed: 6 January 2017)

You Tube. (2013). I Don't Want A Present 2013 . [Online Video]. 2 December 2012. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI_rjEHClro&feature=youtu.be. [Accessed: 6 January 2017].

260 reasons to give up your presents, meet one of them (2013) Available at: http://www.onegirl.org.au/blog/there-are-260-reasons-to-give-up-your-presents-this-year-and-ramatu-is-one-of-them (Accessed: 6 January 2017).