Gender equality
Societies that protect equal rights for girls and boys create benefits for everyone.
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Gender disparities often start small in early childhood. Worldwide, girls and boys are just as likely to be registered at birth and immunized against life-threatening diseases. Many participate in preschool at similar rates. And as they grow, girls are equally – or slightly more – developmentally on track than boys.
But adolescence brings significant change. The onset of puberty can expose girls to discriminatory practices that result in severe physical and mental harm – even rights violations. Compared to boys their age, adolescent girls face higher burdens of domestic work, disproportionate risks of child marriage, and greater threats of gender-based violence.
They also face more severe consequences when cut off from critical care. Complications from pregnancy remain a leading cause of death and disability for adolescent girls in the least developed countries. This is especially the case for the hundreds of millions of girls who have been subjected to female genital mutilation, or for child brides, who often become pregnant young. Adolescent girls are more likely than anyone else to experience sexual violence. And among new HIV infections in adolescents, three quarters occur in girls.
Learning inequalities also widen as children grow. Girls typically receive less support than boys to pursue the studies they choose, like science and mathematics. During adolescence, those who have been married off or become pregnant may be forced to drop out of school entirely. And in low-income countries, many miss out because their schools can’t meet girls' safety and hygiene needs, or because families living in poverty tend to favour boys when investing in their children's futures.
As a result, twice as many girls than boys globally are not in any form of education, employment or training by the time they reach late adolescence.
When denied their most basic rights, girls have fewer chances to improve their circumstances and pass down opportunities to their own children – entrenching barriers to prosperity across generations.
In this way and others, boys also suffer from gender norms. Notions of masculinity can fuel child labour, gang violence and recruitment into armed groups. No matter where it prevails, or how it manifests, gender inequality harms every member of society.
What we do
Reducing inequality strengthens economies and builds stable, resilient societies that give everyone the chance to thrive.
UNICEF builds partnerships across the world to accelerate gender equality. In all areas of our work, we integrate strategies that address gender-specific discrimination and disadvantages. This means partnering with national health sectors to expand quality maternal care and to support the professionalization of the mostly female community health workforce. It means promoting the role of women in the design and delivery of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services. And it means working with the education sector to ensure girls and boys excel in their learning, and find pathways to meaningful employment.
For adolescent girls especially, UNICEF invests in skills building to further their economic empowerment as entrepreneurs, innovators and leaders. We focus on providing learning environments at a time and place that suit girls’ individual circumstances. And we work on assistive technologies for girls with disabilities, along with the expansion of digital platforms, vocational training and apprenticeships.
To keep girls safe from harm, UNICEF programmes focus on preventing gender-based violence, ending child marriage, eliminating female genital mutilation, supporting menstrual health management, delivering HIV and AIDS care, meeting girls' specific psychosocial needs, and more. We invest in innovative models that protect even the hardest-to-reach girls – like virtual safe spaces that allow them to report violence and connect to local resources for support.
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