- It can affect their mental and physical health and development, impair their ability to learn and socialize. It can lead them to run away from home, exposing them to further risks.
- Disparities in the way girls and boys are raised and treated may lead to many sexual and reproductive health problems.
- Girls and women are more vulnerable to rape and sexual exploitation, to suffering from inflammatory diseases, urinary infections, gynecological complications and are at high risk of contracting HIV/AIDS. Globally, young women are 1.6 times more likely to be living with HIV than young men. Of particular concern are the dramatic increases in HIV infection among young women, who now make up 60 per cent of the 15- to 24- year olds living with HIV.
- Discrimination may also have severe implications for girl children's development. Low weight at birth, insufficient feeding, inadequate care and nutrition depletions caused by repeated illness may impair growth in the critical first years and reduce their learning abilities.
- It destroys their self-confidence, undermines their development as functional adults and mothers later in life as they are denied access to education, medical care, and sanitary basic knowledge. Gender discrimination replicates itself from generation to generation.
- If girls remain illiterate, they are likely to be less capable to raise healthy and educated fimilies, to think and judge independently as well as to develop civic sense.
- In the most severe cases, discrimination against girls' children leads to death in cases of female foeticide, girl infanticide or neglect conducting to death.
- Gender discrimination results in malnutrition of girls on a large scale; 56 percent of girls (15-19 years) continue to suffer from anemia; 45 per cent of the girls suffer from stunted growth as opposed to 20 per cent of boys.
- Due to dietary deficiencies, adolescent girls do not achieve their potential weight and height. Also, 35 per cent of rural adolescent girls have a weight below 38 kg and a height below 145 cm.
- Anemia is often responsible for miscarriages, still births, premature births, low birth-weight babies and maternal mortality during childbirth.
- Undernourished girls who grow into undernourished mothers continue a vicious inter generational cycle of under-nutrition and wastage of women.
- Thirty four percent of girls drop out before they complete Class 5. One of the major reasons why so many girls do not attend school is because of their workload, both within and outside the household. Daughters are often kept at home to help the family because the social and economic value of educating girls is not recognized.
- It is a little known fact that among the world's exploited child workers, girls outnumber boys.
- Without access to education, girls are denied the knowledge and skills needed to advance their status.
- Child marriages still continue despite the fact that the Child Marriage Restraint Act was
- enacted as far way back as in 1929. Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have high incidence of child marriages.
- 34 percent women in the age group 15-19 are already married. These proportions are higher in rural areas. Another significant fact is that performance of child marriages is not uniform across all States of India. There are stark variations between States.
- The Girl child is also highly susceptible to abuse, violence and exploitation both inside and outside her home. It is a known fact that crimes against girl child have been increasing over the years but very few cases get reported. Rape, trafficking, sexual exploitation, child labour, beggary are some the forms of violence perpetuated on the girl child.
Adolescent girls (11-18) deserve special care and attention. Adolescence has traditionally been considered the most difficult period in an individual’s development cycle. The changes that adolescents undergo (physical, psychological, physiological, hormonal, cognitive and sexual) are not only stressful but confusing since these changes occur simultaneously and rapidly in the absence of any kind of support and expert guidance to cope with the transition.
The situation is aggravated with uncertainties of social expectations and constraints, career, marriage partner, sex life and the ‘self’ itself. The confusion is made worse with societal perceptions and definitions of this period as requiring controls and restrictions.
Thus for a girl child, life is a constant fight for survival, growth and development from the time she is conceived till she attains 18 years. The table given below depicts the life chart of a girl child and highlights the many life threatening problems she faces :
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