KEY POINTS:
Almost 100 million girls "disappear" each year, killed off in the womb or as babies, a new report reveals.
"Because I am a girl" exposes the shocking gender discrimination which remains deeply entrenched and widely tolerated across the world, including the fact that female feticide is increasing in
countries where a male child remains more valued.
The report highlights the fact that two million girls a year still suffer genital mutilation, half a million die during pregnancy - the leading killer among 15- to 19-year-olds - every year and an estimated 7.3 million are living with HIV/Aids compared with 4.5 million young men.
Almost a million girls fall victim to child traffickers each year, compared with a quarter that number of boys.
Of the 1.5 billion people living on under $1 a day, 70 per cent are female, with 96 million young women aged 15 to 24 unable to read or write - almost double the number for males.
Although many of the most shocking figures in the report by global child development agency Plan International relate to developing nations, sexual discrimination is still prevalent elsewhere.
In Britain, two women a week are killed by current or former partners. It also has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe and having a baby at a young age means women are more likely to slip into poverty.
There has also been a substantial rise in obesity among young girls in Britain.
Among 16- to 24-year-olds twice as many young women are overweight than males. This can lead to anxiety, loneliness and mental health problems.
Although girls in Britain often outperform boys in school, they are still victims of discrimination in the workplace. A study found they were still woefully under-represented in the boardroom, politics and courts and the situation was actually getting worse in some areas.
While the pay gap between young men and women is 3.7 per cent, it rises to 10.7 per cent for those in their 30s.
"Even if you look at the UK, life is still difficult for some minority girls. More girls are going to university but then it flattens off. They end up in the five 'Cs', which include cleaning, caring and clerical.
"They have broken through the marble ceiling into management but not through the glass ceiling into the boardroom," said Marie Staunton, chief executive of Plan UK.
The Because I Am a Girl campaign, launched yesterday, highlights discrimination and will work towards improving gender equality worldwide.
Designed to run until 2015, it will also follow the lives of 125 girls born last year until their 9th birthday.
Yesterday's report is the first in a series of nine global studies by Plan International. Statistics show that 62 million girls are not even receiving primary school education and an estimated 450 million have stunted growth because of childhood malnutrition.
The report's authors point out that many of the UN's millennium development goals are in jeopardy of never being reached because of the continued violation of girls' rights.
"Why, in an era that saw the term 'girl power' coined, are millions of girls being condemned to a life of inequality and poverty?" the report asks.
Graca Machel, children's rights champion and wife of former South African President Nelson Mandela, said: "The 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."
- INDEPENDENT
