Geneva (Switzerland). On 11 October 2020 International Day of Girl Child is celebrated, established by the United Nations General Assembly in 2011 to focus attention on the challenges that girl children face every day in different parts of the world and to promote respect for their rights.
2020 commemorates 25 years since the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action, which countries unanimously adopted in 1995, during the World Conference on women at Peking, to promote for the first time, not only the rights of women, but also of girls. Girl children have the right to a safe, educated, and healthy life and must be supported during the teenage years, which are important for their growth and empowerment as women.
The theme of the International Day of the Girl Child 2020: “My voice, our equal future” starts from the desire to listen to the change that girls dream of and the solutions against discrimination, violence, and scarce learning opportunities that they are carrying out in their own communities and nations.
The Office of Human Rights (IIMA) of Geneva is committed to promoting and giving girls a voice, in the awareness that, if supported, they can encourage other girls to build a better future together.
In the Encyclical Letter Fratelli tutti, Pope Francis underlines how respect for human rights leads to the flourishing of creativity for the benefit of society: “It frequently becomes clear that, in practice, human rights are not equal for all. Respect for those rights ‘is the preliminary condition for a country’s social and economic development. When the dignity of the human person is respected, and his or her rights recognized and guaranteed, creativity and interdependence thrive, and the creativity of the human personality is released through actions that further the common good’”. (FT no. 22)
