Ann Sudmalis (Gilmore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tuesday, 11 October, marks International Day of the Girl Child, a day created in 2011 to champion girls' rights and to address the unique challenges that girls face around the world. While we have many registered days to recognise and celebrate, this one has special significance for me. I have previously spoken of volunteering in India, but, even before that, our family fudge business supported a school on the rural outskirts of Chennai. I visited this school and its orphanage. The nursery wire baskets were filled with young babies, some with an obvious disability but others simply left to die by their poverty-stricken parents because the child had the misfortune to be a girl. There was one poor baby about 10 weeks old who had been left near a river under the shade of a scrubby tree. Unfortunately the child had been left near an ants' nest and, when she was rescued, she was covered in ants—on her ears, eyes, nose and mouth. The baby died, but she had been abandoned because she was a girl. Clearly we can see why recognising the International Day of the Girl Child is so important.

Over the last 15 years, since the global community committed to implementing the Millennium Development Goals, we have made significant progress in improving the lives of girls during early childhood. Today they are more likely to be enrolled in primary school and receive essential vaccinations. They are less likely to suffer from health and nutrition problems. We should be proud of these achievements that help save lives and improve the wellbeing of millions of people around the world, thanks in large part to the targeted investments of Australian aid. These benefits go beyond the individual. They help a generation thrive and, in so doing, support future generations to also thrive.

There are 1.1 billion girls living in our world today. To quote the United Nations, this is:

… a powerful constituency for shaping a sustainable world that’s better for everyone. They are brimming with talent and creativity. But their dreams and potential are often thwarted by discrimination, violence and lack of equal opportunities.

Significant obstacles stand in the way of millions of girls realising their human rights and achieving their full potential. That is why we continue to acknowledge the International Day of the Girl Child, to recognise how far we have come and yet acknowledge how much more work we still must do.

There are a number of persistent problems around the world that prevent girls from reaching their full potential. The first relates to poor quality education. While the number of girls enrolled in primary school almost matches the number of boys, girls' enrolment often drops off in secondary school and even more so at university. In addition, many girls who do go to school are also responsible for a heavy workload of household chores, keeping them away from their studies. The result: women are much more likely to be illiterate or less educated and less skilled than men, which affects their work choices, independence and freedom.

The second problem is the lack of information and services related to puberty and reproductive health. While this is improving for adult women, many adolescent girls are not provided with the information they need to lead healthy lives. In fact, many communities are often in the dark about sexual health practices. Early pregnancy is particularly dangerous for adolescents. Girls aged 15 to 20 are twice as likely to die in childbirth as those in their 20s, and girls under the age of 15 are five times as likely to die. Ninety per cent of adolescent pregnancies in the developing world are to girls who are already married.

In some tribes, girls on reaching puberty have to undergo female circumcision. When I visited a Masai community, it was a day set aside for just such an event for two young girls. While I was invited to be part of their celebrations, I actually returned to the bus and cried silently for these two young women whose culture was the celebration of genital mutilation. We have a long way to go before we can say that, internationally, our girls can grow to womanhood without such a terrible experience.

The third problem is that adolescent girls are much more vulnerable to physical and sexual violence. Deaths due to violence increase as girls enter adolescence. In 2012 violence was the second leading cause of death for adolescent girls.

Finally, while the practice of child marriage has been declining, it is still a persistent problem. Many girls are forced to leave school and have children early, and many are vulnerable to abusive relationships. Every year almost 15 million girls are married before the age of 18, and one in nine girls in the developing world are married by the age of 15. In the remote villages of Tamil Nadu and other Indian districts, a young girl experiencing a breech birth, perhaps not even having known she was pregnant, spends three to four days trying to give birth before finally travelling to the closest town where medical help is available, yet often both lives are lost.

In addition, while some information is known about birth control, there certainly needs to be much better education. Girls are often far too young to give birth, and often the baby is a big baby that tears its way into the world. Other young girls have plastic cups, originally used for birth control, left within the birth canal, or any other unimaginable material can be left to rot and poison them. These images are horrifying and I make no excuse for recording them here. Girls such as these present to places like Kenyatta National Hospital with bladder or bowel fistulas which ruin their lives forever without medical intervention. We have a lot to do to help our girls internationally.

We also have work to do in our own backyard to encourage our girls to believe in themselves, to encourage them to be the best they can be and to be sexually responsible. A survey recently released in Australia by Plan International and Our Watch revealed that nine in 10 Australian girls believe they are not treated equally to boys. To quote the United Nations, adolescent girls have the right to a safe, educated and healthy life, not only during these critical formative years but also as they mature into women. If effectively supported during the adolescent years, girls have the potential to change the world, both as the empowered girls of today and as tomorrow's workers, mothers, entrepreneurs, mentors and political leaders. An investment in realising the power of adolescent girls upholds their rights today and promises a more equitable and prosperous future—one in which half of humanity is an equal partner in solving the problems of climate change, political conflict, economic growth, disease prevention and global sustainability.

This year's theme for the International Day of the Girl Child is 'Girls' Progress=Goals' Progress: A Global Girl Data Movement.' This is a call to action for increased investment in collecting and analysing girl-focused, girl-relevant and sex disaggregated data. The Sustainable Development Goals which Australia and 192 other United Nations members agreed to set an ambitious roadmap for tackling the obstacles that girls face in their lives, especially those most vulnerable to discrimination based on race, ethnic background, location, religion, disability, migration or economic status. We need to know what is holding our girls back and what is critical for fulfilling the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Progress for girls is progress for all. An extra year of primary school for girls can increase their eventual adult wages by between 10 and 20 per cent, and an extra year of secondary school increases that to between 15 and 35 per cent. Studies from Kenya, Brazil and India show that delaying adolescent child-bearing age could have increased national economic productivity worth in the billions of dollars. If all girls completed secondary education in low and lower middle income countries, under five mortality would be cut in half.

This year's International Day of the Girl Child also asks us to double our efforts to collect accurate data about their lives to enable us to take targeted and effective action. I am thrilled the Australian government has prioritised gender equality and women's empowerment as a key pillar of our overseas aid program. Recently our foreign minister, the Hon. Julie Bishop, committed $6.5 million over four years to making the Making Every Woman and Girl Count program an integral part of our long-term commitment to closing the gender baby gaps that exist globally. In fact, Australia was the first country to invest in the program. What gets counted generally gets done. That is the theme of what has happened. Melinda Gates said:

We can't close the gender gap without first closing the data gap.

Australia is leading the way with data collection with the individual deprivation measure. It is a collaborative initiative with the Australian government and the Australian National University to produce a world-first data innovative tool. The more we know about the struggles and achievements in girls' lives, especially those who are the poorest, hardest to reach or most excluded, the more we can do to protect girls and improve their opportunities.

In closing, I wonder how long it will be before we, even in our advanced culture, can accept that women and girls can be equal to their male counterparts, and how long it will be before, when a young woman in an executive office beats all the male colleagues at the table tennis tournament, she is not patted on the back by her boss, who says, 'I don't want to detract from your victory, but they probably chose to lose to you.' So, on this International Day of the Girl Child, let's recall the words of Helen Reddy in I Am Woman, because before that she was a girl.