As we observe the World Population Day (July 11, 2020), it would be appropriate to have a peep into the UN's latest report on world population. In its report "State of World Population 2020", the UNFPA's Division of Communications and Strategic Partnerships states, "To achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, including target 5.3 on ending harmful practices...To meet our objective and protect the millions of women and girls whose bodily integrity is threatened, now is the time to push harder. The pace of our progress must be faster."
The report edited by Arthur Erken, Director, Division of Communications and Strategic Partnerships, asserts that gender equality is an agreed global goal that
explicitly calls for ending all forms of discrimination, violence and harmful practices against all women and girls everywhere to lend new momentum to the global drive towards gender equality and women’s empowerment, including through mobilizing an energetic, digitally native new generation of feminist advocates speaking out around the globe.
Some relevant points in the report are as follows.
-Harmful practices are part of a continuum of violence against women and girls that remains widespread and are a “silent and endemic crisis”
- One third of women will experience physical or sexual abuse at some point in their lives
-Worrisome signs of how harmful practices, despite often ancient origins, are translating into the modern world (such as)
“medicalization” of female genital mutilation
cases of “selling” child brides on social media; and
the use of reproductive health technology to enable discriminatory preferences for sons
"A girl forced into an early marriage will in many cases drop out of school, dashing prospects for later earnings and autonomy. She may find herself socially isolated and prone to depression. And unlike a boy in an early marriage, she may get pregnant whether she wants to or not, and before her body is ready, leading to a host of risks and consequences for her and her baby. Where son preference, another harmful practice, operates, sex selection favouring boys may occur before birth, or later on may translate into shorter breastfeeding times for girls, poorer nutrition, inadequate schooling and fewer inoculations," highlights the report.
It would be pertinent to remark here that this trend is still visible in Rajasthan State of India though the problem is been mitigated to some extent through recent efforts.
(For full report visit: https://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/UNFPA_PUB_2020_EN_State_of_World_Population.pdf )
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