On the occasion of World Education Day, this January 24, several NGOs recall the extent to which inequalities between girls and boys persist in access to learning. Within regions in emergency situations, the observation is clear: girls are still the first to be excluded from schooling.
Despite notable progress in girls’ access to school worldwide, in 2021 still 132 million girls aged 6 to 17 are not in school, 75% of whom are adolescents, according to the world bank. Of these, one in four are in a developing country.
Indeed, while all the data indicate that, on average, girls are gradually closing the gaps in access to education with boys, the situation is much more contrasted when we look a little more closely at certain regions. According to the Plan international associationit is nevertheless undeniable that education is a real lever of emancipation for girls and a powerful vector for ” lift a country out of poverty “.
Despite everything, countries in crisis are struggling to reduce the gap in schooling between girls and boys, and to increase the number of literate girls. ” In twenty countries, concentrated in Central Africa, West Africa, and South-East Asia, girls still suffer from very serious inequalities in terms of education. », comments Manos Antoninis, director of the Global Education Monitoring Report of Unesco.
Education, a recent humanitarian aid priority
In times of conflict, war, after a natural disaster or during a humanitarian crisis, education always seems to be the big loser. ” For a long time, it was considered that what was most important for populations was to cover basic needs, housing and food. It is difficult to recognize that education is also an essential humanitarian service that can save lives”, deplores Carole Coupez, deputy general delegate of the Secular Solidarity collective. ” But over the past ten years, we have understood that education is a very important factor in promoting the development of countries. “adds Manos Antoninis.
Awareness of the importance of education which has accelerated with the start of the war in Syria, according to Violaine Gagnet, director of programs at Plan international France. ” The Syrian people were very educated, and overnight they didn’t go back to school. That’s why we talked about “Lost Syrian Generation”. It was the same at Yemen then in Ukraine, and I think that with these crises, we have better understood the scope that education and quality teaching can have. »
However, the field of education represents barely 1.6% of the humanitarian aid allocated by France in 2021, while it amounted to 6.48% in 2020 and 3.4% in 2019, according to the Childhood Group. Faced with this observation, Solidarité laïque tries to put education back at the heart of concerns by moving away from an overly narrow vision of schooling. ” We necessarily think of education as something that takes time, that requires infrastructure, classrooms… But there are parallel, less formal solutions that give education back its role of prevention and protection. and provide better responses to crises “says Pascal Kouamé, director of the collective’s international cooperation actions.
According to him, popular or informal education can be crucial alternatives to help displaced populations in times of conflict. In Mali, in the Sahel region, target of terrorismtheir volunteers and the mobilized teachers try, for example, to adapt to the nomadic population, by traveling with them to continue to teach the children.
A vicious cycle difficult to break for girls
According to the monetary fund Education Cannot Waitthe first victims of this neglected education in emergency situations are girls, since they have 2.5 times more likely to be out of school than boys “. This figure can be explained by several obstacles, all based on two factors: gender stereotypes and poverty.
” Lack of infrastructure and school transport, distance from school, poor teaching conditions, high tuition fees… », Solidarité Laïque lists several structural causes that exclude children, and girls, from school. Also, to meet the financial needs of the most impoverished families, children tend to be put to work. ” And because of strong gender prejudices, we will rather consider that the boy must go to school and that the girl must work. “, deciphers Violaine Gagnet.
These exacerbated economic pressures then lead to a vicious circle that is difficult to break, and for the girls, a double penalty. For example, early marriage encourages girls to drop out of school, very often to to have one less mouth to feed “. In Nigeria, one in five teenage girls do not go to school because they are married or pregnant, according to UNESCO. Once married, precocious pregnancies and potential sexual assault keep them even further away from school. And the law is slowly changing. Policies that limited or prevented young pregnant girls from going to school were only repealed in 2019 in Mozambique, Zimbabwe or Uganda.
The case of Afghanistan stands out as a ” terrible exception according to Manos Antoninis, a country where women’s rights back drastically day by day since the Taliban took power. And among the last draconian measures taken include the ban on women having access to secondary education and university.
In addition, girls are more exposed to violence on the way to school. ” During a war, some parents are afraid to let their daughter go to school because of the possible dangers on the way, and therefore prefer to keep them at home. », continues Manos Antoninis. Subjected to sexual violence, caught in human trafficking, caught up in prostitution networks… Plan international volunteers regularly describe such situations, particularly at the borders of Ukraine. ” Our volunteers saw vans and men who seemed to be waiting for girls to come alone “, describes Violaine Gagnet.
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Make you want to go back to school
To fight against certain sexist mentalities in addition to impoverishment, humanitarian aid in crisis areas must find the right means to highlight the importance of girls’ education. ” We notice that girls internalize a lot the role of mother or wife assigned by society. », explains Violaine Gagnet. So, Plan International is working to restore living conditions that are more “ normal to motivate people to return to school, and protect girls who have been traumatized.
Similarly, Solidarité Laïque has taken the initiative to make schools a place of life and citizenship, open to issues other than those of schooling, such as health and sexuality. ” In Haiti for example, in addition to the hours of lessons that we offer, psychologists support young people who have suffered trauma during conflicts to help them see school as a fulfilling environment “says Pascal Kouame.
According to Manos Antoninis, the benefits of a population with more educated women are found in terms of health, demography, family income, and in the long term, in terms of ” the pacification of relations in a society “. As well, ” One year of study extra is equivalent to 10 to 20% more salary for a woman, which therefore gives her a stronger economic power, and more independence “, emphasizes Violaine Gagnet. In a 2018 reportthe World Bank also demonstrated that girls’ limited access to education costs countries ” between $15 trillion and $30 trillion in lost productivity and income across the lifespan “.
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Humanitarian aid faces many challenges
Nevertheless, humanitarian work comes up against multiple resistances, religious, state, cultural, ideological… “ Very often we hear “yes but that’s how it is here”. Except that international law and the International Convention on the Rights of the Child take precedence over all rights, regardless of the legislation of the countries », Asserts Violaine Gagnet. Thus, certain laws put in place and supposed to protect girls are sometimes circumvented, among other things on early marriage, without too many reprisals.
The NGOs on the ground also expect local governments to honor the commitments made by signing certain United Nations resolutions. ” One of the problems we face is that in the past, education seemed to be a sanctuary domain, which we avoided attacking during a conflict. But today, as is the case in the war in Ukraine, we observe that places of education are now being targeted, despite international conventions supposed to protect children. »worries Carole Coupez.
And beyond access to the school environment, many obstacles still persist in terms of the content and quality of teaching. ” Even if we succeed in improving girls’ access to school, what are they being taught? How are they represented in textbooks? What educational program is implemented and with what patriarchal symbols? asks Manos Antoninis.
Academic content is not the only challenge to face. The demand of impoverished populations for more education is in fact very high, as Solidarité Laïque points out. ” Today, in the field, many families clearly perceive the fact that acquiring knowledge is a hope of obtaining a better future for their children. “says Pascal Kouamé. Except that this level of demand for aid is much more sustained than the international offer to respond to it.
Added to this, according to the associations, is the problem of access to populations where instability reigns, and the lack of funding for education. Major obstacles that prevent NGOs from acting properly for the education of children, and especially that of girls.
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