Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Firstly, I want to thank my colleague, the member for Newcastle, for bringing this motion before the House today to acknowledge the International Day of the Girl Child, which will be celebrated across the globe tomorrow. The International Day of the Girl Child was launched in 2012 in response to widespread youth advocacy demanding acknowledgement of the unequal experience of disadvantage borne by girls across the globe. The United Nations responded to this campaign by establishing the International Day of the Girl Child, which is celebrated annually on 11 October. The mission statement for the annual celebration is to:

… help galvanize worldwide enthusiasm for goals to better girls’ lives, providing an opportunity for them to show leadership and reach their full potential.

It is very unfortunate that here in the 21st century we need a day to highlight that, globally, women and girls continue to bear the greatest burden in society. In poverty, violence, disadvantage and access to educational services, girls are always affected the greatest and suffer the greatest. This reality should be an outrage to us all. Despite a century's worth of women's activism and the suffragette movement, girls still experience discrimination and disadvantage based on their gender. Most alarming are the issues around violence, forced marriage, poverty and access to education and to opportunity which exist globally and are rife in a number of developing countries. However, they are also present in the developed world, including Australia.

One of the most damaging sources of discrimination and disadvantage that girls face is that of access to education. Currently there are more than 60 million girls around the world who are not in school. Removing barriers to education is vitally important not only due to the positive flow-on effects a girl experiences once she is educated but also because education is a right for every human being, regardless of their gender. The evidence shows that educated women are generally healthier and are less vulnerable to diseases, including HIV and AIDS; are more likely to be employed and earn better incomes; are likely to marry later and have fewer children; and are better able to provide health care and education for their children and for their families. All these factors create a better life for girls and for their families, and they also provide for the advancement of communities and future generations.

Another great source of concern for girls that often prohibits girls from receiving an education is the issue of forced marriage and becoming child brides. Over 100 million girls are predicted to become child brides over the next decade, with evidence suggesting that one-third of girls in the developing world are married before the age of 18 and one-third of women in the developing world will give birth before the age of 20. But it is not just in the developing world where incidences of child brides and forced marriages occur; it is also happening here in our country, in Australia. In 2013 the Australian parliament criminalised forced marriage but, to date, there have been no prosecutions. However, many cases of forced marriage have since come to light. In the past two years a child welfare hotline has received more than 70 calls relating to child brides and, in the past financial year, the Australian Federal Police has investigated 69 incidences of forced marriage—more than double the number for the previous year.

With the rising incidence of forced marriages, I was pleased to participate in a theatre workshop at a school in my electorate, Roxburgh Park College, that addressed these issues. The workshop, which took place last year, was conceptualised by Miss Thoiba Saeedh, who was an intern in my office, and formed part of the forced marriage pilot project run by the Australian Catholic Religious Against Trafficking in Humans. Issues relating to cultural identity, gender equality and the competing demands of family expectations with individual rights were raised during the workshop. I represent a very diverse migrant community with newly-arrived and emerging communities from Africa, the Middle East and South-East Asia, making my electorate an appropriate place for such a pilot program to have taken place.

I was very pleased to work with the Australian Catholic Religious Against Trafficking in Humans order. I work with them often, and have been doing so over the years. I was pleased that they were able to come into my electorate and conduct this workshop at a secondary school which is very diverse. I found the one-day experience to be very rewarding not just for those of us who were involved in conceptualising the workshop but also for the students who participated in it. The workshop allowed them to confront and come to terms with some of the issues that many of them were experiencing at home. Often it is fear, embarrassment and not wanting to get their parents into trouble. These are some of the reasons why these issues are not raised and perhaps why so many young women are forced into marriage.

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