Because I am a Girl: The State of the World's Girls 2007, the most comprehensive report ever published on why millions of girls and young women are being condemned to a life of inequality and poverty, was today launched globally by international development agency Plan.

The report states most girls and young women in the world’s poorest communities are powerlessness, a situation that should not be allowed to continue.

Because I am a Girl: The State of the World's Girls 2007 is the first in a series of global reports on girls to be published over the next nine years by Plan and warns that six of the eight Millennium Development Goals agreed by world leaders are likely to fail girls living in poverty. The report warns the goals will be missed altogether unless world leaders adopt a tougher stance on the enforcement of international laws set up to protect girl's rights.

Plan will be the first to produce a global report series on girls and young women each year from 2007-2015. Plan will continue to follow the lives of 135 baby girls living in nine developing countries as part of a group study on girl's rights and gender discrimination. This ‘life cycle’ approach in each report will provide an important lens for examining girls’ rights and will bring to life the inequalities buried in global statistics.

Because I am a Girl: The State of the World's Girls 2007 report demonstrates what is currently being done at a local, national and international level, and highlights the effort needed for real progress. The global statistics provided in this report paint a bleak picture of some of the challenges facing girls and young women growing up in the world's most impoverished regions:

• girls aged 15-19 years old account for 50% of victims of sexual assault worldwide
• birth complications and unsafe abortions are the leading cause of death for young women aged 15-19 years old
• 70% of the 1.5 billion people living on less than a $1 a day are female
• stunted growth in an estimated 450 million women as a result of childhood malnutrition
• approximately 7.3 million young women are living with HIV/AIDS, in comparison to 4.3 million men
• two thirds of 15-19 year olds newly infected with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa are female
• 62 million girls do not attend primary school.

Global statistics on the extent of female foeticide, early marriage, abuse and violence and the lack of education given to girls in poorer nations are pulled together in this report. Each chapter links to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and imposes the question ‘What still needs to be done?’. Real life case studies, action plans, ‘Girls’ voices’, and a table listing 59 years of international legislation specifically addressing girls’ rights are presented within the report.

The report is backed by Graça Machel, a leading ambassador for child rights with her husband South Africa's former President Nelson Mandela, and an advisory panel and a group of partners from UN agencies, international NGOs and organisations working to secure girls’ and women’s rights.

Children's champion Graça Machel welcomed the launch of the report today and called for world leaders to be made accountable for tackling gender inequality.

"This study shows our failure to make an equal, more just world has resulted in the most intolerable of situations. To discriminate on the basis of sex and gender is morally indefensible; economically, politically and socially unsupportable. None of the Millennium Development Goals will be achieved without gender equality. We cannot let another minute go by without acting decisively and urgently. Unless we do, we will be condemning millions of girls to a life of poverty and hardship," Ms Machel said.

Ms Machel's comments were backed by Plan Australia’s Chief Executive, Ian Wishart, who urged the international community to make the fight against gender discrimination a priority.

"Investing in girls yields real returns even to the poorest countries. World Bank Research shows that if 1% more girls have secondary education, annual per capita income growth is boosted by 0.3% on average," Mr Wishart said.

Mr Wishart repeated a statement made in the report’s introduction [pp: 18], "This report gives us a chance to learn about how girls across the world can change their own world”.

“Gender equality can’t be reached over night. It’s a massive goal which everyone needs to agree to for it to be reached. It’s not that everyone needs to know about it but people just need to get off their behinds and do something about it.”

Alia, aged 17, from the UK

Notes to Editors

1. ‘Because I am Girl: The State of the World’s Girls’ is the first in a series of nine annual, global reports on girl’s rights and the experiences of girls growing up in the world’s poorest communities.
2. The report was produced with guidance from an advisory panel of human rights experts from Womankind, UNIFEM, Amnesty International and the School of Oriental, African Studies (SOAS); University of London UK, the Institute of Development Studies; University of Sussex and the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts.
3. About Plan:
   • Plan is a child centred development agency and works to help children in 48 of the world’s poorest countries in Africa, Asia and Central/South America.
   • The international development agency works with children, their families and communities to build a world where children are safe and healthy so that they can reach their full potential.
   • Plan has no religious or political affiliations.
   • Projects including schools and health centres are geared to working with children and their communities, Plan recognises that making real improvements in children’s lives means working both locally and globally on the underlying causes of poverty in the developing world.
   • Plan is a member of the MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY coalition and works within Australia to raise awareness of the issues of poverty in the developing world and what we can all do to be a part of the solution.
   
   

For further information, or to arrange an interview with Ian Wishart, please contact:
Tim Cansfield-Smith - media and communications manager, Plan, 0411 642 194
Emma Smith - media officer, Plan 03 9672 3652