UNESCO Launching a new Interactive Atlas of Girls and Women's Rights

UNESCO is launching a new
Interactive Atlas of girls’ and women’s right to education as part of the Her
education our future Initiative. The Atlas is a monitoring and advocacy tool,
aiming to enhance public knowledge of the status of national constitutions,
legislation and regulations related to girls’ and women’s education rights, as
well as to monitor progress.
More than 70 years after the
recognition of the right to education in the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, many girls and women cannot exercise their right to education due to
gender inequality and discriminatory practices. Poverty, early marriage, and
gender-based violence are just some of reasons behind the high percentage of
out-of-school and illiterate girls and women globally.
Strengthening the right of girls
and women to quality education through the implementation of international
instruments is key to eliminate discrimination and to realize equality of
rights between genders. This cannot be achieved without solid national legal
frameworks that are rights-based, gender responsive and inclusive.
The international community has
reacted to pervasive discrimination by adopting international human rights
legal instruments such as the UNESCO Convention against Discrimination in
Education or the UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of
Discrimination against Women.
This commitment has been further
reaffirmed by the Sustainable Development Goals, notably target 4.5, which
explicitly requires States to eliminate gender disparities in education and
ensure equal access to all levels by 2030. Indicative strategies include the
necessity to strengthen national legislation related to gender equality in
education.
The Interactive Atlas developed
by UNESCO will enable better follow up of changes in the national normative
frameworks that regulate girls’ and women’s right to education. This
interactive tool currently uses 12 indicators to measure the status of national
legal frameworks on girls’ and women’s right to education.
Based on the information
collected and feedback received from States, the Atlas will be further
developed and updated periodically until 2030 – the deadline set for
Sustainable Development Goal 4. This first iteration includes information and
data on 196 countries for the first three indicators and on 35 countries for
the others, but the ambition is to expand to cover all States.
Source: UNESCO
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