The focus of this year's International Day of the Girl Child is a greater push for more gender data. This includes things like: more data about why girls stop going to school, the unpaid work girls and women do, and even why women stop using contraception. But who we feel is being left out of this crucial conversation? Out-of-school girls. Which is exactly why we're joining Malala Fund and UNESCO on Thursday, 13 October for a virtual conversation all about solutions to help out-of-school girls.
Here's the facts:
- Children who don’t go to school are often the most vulnerable and marginalized.
- In total, 121 million children and adolescents are currently out of primary and lower secondary school worldwide – a number that has remained essentially constant since 2007.
- Gender is a key factor in who has access to education, though the picture is complex. Girls make up 53% of all children out of primary school and 52% of all adolescents out of lower secondary school, even though only 48% of the world’s under-15 population are girls.
