Girls around the world face barriers that boys simply don't.
From being denied education to facing child marriage, gender inequality robs girls of their childhood and limits their potential.
But when girls have the same opportunities as boys—to learn, to stay healthy, to be heard—entire communities thrive.
With the right support, resources and opportunities, the potential of the world’s more than 1.1 billion girls is limitless.
Save the Children works with girls, families, and communities to break down these barriers and create a world where every girl can claim her rights.
Answering the big questions about girl's rights
Girls rights: The Challenges Girls Face
What is a fragile country?
A country can become fragile when it's affected by crises like wars and climate disasters.
Systems that are supposed to protect people like law enforcement and healthcare are weakened, leaving girls more vulnerable to poverty, violence, and child marriage. Governments in fragile countries face the dual challenge of needing to do more to protect girl’s rights, at a time when they are least able to deliver that support .
Education Denied
Globally, girls are more likely than boys to be out of school. In conflict zones and low-income countries, this gap widens dramatically. Approximately 133 million girls worldwide are out of school—with adolescent girls in crisis-affected areas facing the highest barriers.
According to Save the Children's Global Girlhood Report 2024, the world is failing 110 million girls in crisis who are denied education. When schools close due to conflict, natural disasters, or economic collapse, girls are often the last to return—if they return at all.
Poverty, household responsibilities, and cultural expectations often force girls to drop out. When schools lack separate toilets or menstrual hygiene facilities, girls miss classes or stop attending altogether once they reach puberty.
Health Barriers
Girls' access to healthcare—particularly reproductive and maternal health services—is often limited by stigma, poverty, or lack of services. When girls become mothers too early, their bodies aren't ready. When girls become mothers too early, their bodies aren't ready. According to the WHO's 2024 adolescent pregnancy data, complications during pregnancy and childbirth are the leading cause of death for girls aged 15 to 19 globally.
In crisis settings documented in our Global Girlhood Report 2024, healthcare systems collapse precisely when girls need them most. Maternal health services disappear, leaving pregnant girls—many married as children—without safe delivery care or emergency obstetric support.
Child Marriage
Every year, 12 million girls are married before they turn 18. That's one girl every two seconds. Child marriage cuts short girls' education, puts their health at risk through early pregnancy, and traps them in cycles of poverty and domestic violence.
Our Global Girlhood Report 2024 reveals that in crisis settings, child marriage rates surge as families resort to desperate measures for survival. Girls living through conflict or disaster face a double threat: the immediate crisis and the long-term harm of forced early marriage.
In countries where Save the Children works, we've seen how child marriage intersects with other crises: when families face economic hardship or displacement, marrying off daughters becomes a survival strategy. But it shouldn't be.
Violence and Exploitation
Girls face specific forms of violence: sexual abuse, trafficking, female genital mutilation, and gender-based violence that often goes unreported. One in three women worldwide experiences physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, patterns that frequently begin in childhood.
In humanitarian crises, these risks escalate dramatically. The Global Girlhood Report 2024 documents how conflict and disaster create environments where violence against girls flourishes—from increased domestic abuse in overcrowded displacement camps to trafficking networks that exploit chaos and desperation.
The Crisis Effect
When disaster strikes—whether conflict, climate emergency, or economic collapse—girls pay the steepest price. Our Global Girlhood Report 2024 examines how humanitarian crises amplify every inequality girls already face.
Girls in Humanitarian Crises: The Numbers
The report reveals that among the 470 million girls living in crisis-affected countries:
- 110 million crisis-affected girls are denied education—girls who should be in classrooms but are instead working, caring for siblings, or forced into early marriage
- Girls are 2.5 times more likely than boys to be out of school in conflict-affected countries
- When families flee conflict, adolescent girls are often left behind or married off before displacement to "protect" them
- In displacement camps, lack of safe toilets, menstrual hygiene facilities, and lighting creates additional barriers keeping girls from school and putting them at risk of violence
Why Crises Hit Girls Harder
The report identifies specific mechanisms through which crises worsen gender inequality:
- Economic desperation: When families lose income, girls are pulled from school first. Their education is seen as expendable compared to boys', or they're needed for household labour and care work while adults seek employment.
- Child marriage as crisis response: Families facing economic catastrophe often resort to marrying daughters as young as possible—both to reduce the number of mouths to feed and in a misguided attempt to secure girls' futures through a husband's financial support.
- Collapsed services: Healthcare, protection systems, and schools disappear precisely when girls need them most. The support structures that might prevent violence, early pregnancy, or school dropout vanish.
- Increased violence: Overcrowded displacement camps, breakdown of law and order, and normalized violence create environments where abuse of girls escalates—often with no functioning systems to report to or seek help from.
Viyan* 15, sits for a portrait wearing traditional Yazidi dress with her father Daryan*, 39, inside their tent, Kabaratu ID camp, northern Iraq. Viyan* has attended several child’s rights conferences in Baghdad campaigning on behalf of Yazidi children and has been supported by Save the Children’s family safe program. Photo credit: Emily Garthwaite
What the Data Says
The statistics paint a stark picture, but they also show where intervention works:
- In Sierra Leone, where 30% of girls were married before 18 in 2020, Save the Children's advocacy contributed to landmark legislation in 2024 prohibiting child marriage and establishing a seven-year action plan to implement the ban.
- Our girl-led movement work in Colombia and Malawi supports girls to join feminist movements that have proven to be the key factor in improving legal protections from violence.
- When girls stay in school through secondary education, child marriage drops by 64%, according to research compiled in our Global Girlhood Report 2024.
- Educated girls earn, on average, 10-20% more for each additional year of schooling completed—with ripple effects for their entire communities.
- Countries with higher girls' secondary school enrollment rates have lower maternal mortality, lower infant mortality, and stronger economic growth.
How Save the Children Creates Change
Save the Children have been working with girls to realise their rights for over 100 years.
Girls worldwide are uniting to create change in their communities, even in the most challenging environments.
Save the Children supports this by partnering with girl-led groups on their terms. We've collaborated with girls in fragile regions like Yemen and oPT, as well as Bolivia, Colombia, Nigeria, and adapted programs for younger girls in China, Indonesia, Mexico, and Vietnam.
Together with girls at risk of being forced into early marriage, we speak with influential leaders in their communities, who can help them to change harmful customs and oppose child marriages.
Emergency Response for Girls in Crisis
When humanitarian emergencies hit, we prioritize girls' specific needs from day one:
- Safe spaces: We establish women and girls' safe spaces in displacement camps and conflict zones where girls can access services, psychosocial support, and simply be together away from the dangers around them.
- Dignity kits: We distribute menstrual hygiene supplies, soap, underwear, and other essentials that allow girls to manage their periods with dignity—preventing the school absence and shame that often follows displacement.
- Cash assistance: Direct cash to families prevents the desperation that leads to child marriage. When families have resources to meet basic needs, girls aren't viewed as economic burdens to marry off.
- Catch-up education: We run accelerated learning programs so girls who've missed schooling due to crisis can catch up and transition into formal education.
Our Global Girlhood Report 2024 shows that these crisis-specific interventions work: when girls receive targeted support in emergencies, school enrollment rebounds, child marriage rates drop, and girls report feeling safer.
Keeping Girls in School
The evidence is clear: education is one of the most powerful tools for preventing child marriage and breaking cycles of poverty. Keeping girls in school through secondary education reduces child marriage by 64% and dramatically improves girls' lifetime health and economic outcomes.
In Democratic Republic of Congo, our AXE-Filles programme reached over 60,000 out-of-school children in 2024—more than half of them girls—by improving school infrastructure, establishing catch-up classes, and providing vocational training for teenage mothers who'd been excluded from formal education.
Ending Child Marriage
Our approach combines legal advocacy with community engagement. The Global Girlhood Report 2024 shows that laws alone aren't enough—we must work with families, religious leaders, and communities to shift the social norms that perpetuate child marriage. That means:
- Training community leaders on the harms of child marriage
- Creating alternative pathways for girls through education and vocational training
- Providing economic support to families so daughters aren't seen as financial burdens
- Establishing girls' clubs where girls learn about their rights and support each other
- Ensuring child protection systems can identify at-risk girls and intervene before marriage happens
Girls rights in action around the world
The Global Girlhood Report 2024 makes it clear: investing in girls isn't just morally right—it's economically smart and socially transformative.
When girls can go to school, stay healthy, and live free from violence, the benefits extend far beyond individual lives.
Sierra Leone
In Sierra Leone, about one-third of girls are married before the age of 18, robbing them of their childhoods and opportunities to learn, grow, play, and develop.
This year, women and girls across Sierra Leone, joined by Save the Children, successfully campaigned for an historic bill to be passed which criminalises child marriage.
This new bill restores the futures of nearly four million children across Sierra Leone.
Jordan
In 2022 Save the children opened an Adolescent Girls Empowerment Centre at Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan.
The centre is run by and for young women and girls.
It offers many classes to young women and girls from art therapy, self-defence and language lessons, to yoga and advocacy workshops.
“Every day something changes in me,” says shy 16-year-old, Shehab: “My knowledge is increasing, and I'm keeping something to help others.”
Nepal
Save the Children and its local partner, Sabal Nepal, formed the first girls' cricket team to combat child marriage.
Ria* not only started playing cricket but also became the chairperson of her Child Club: a group of young campaigners set up by Save the Children.
These efforts changed her parents' views and those of the community.
They have now declared their ward as child marriage free.
What we're calling for
We're calling on world leaders to recognise fragility as a critical risk for girls, and act now to protect girls from child marriage and other abuses of their rights.
Decrease risk factors
All countries should act now to decrease these risk factors for fragility and abuses of girls’ rights like child marriage.
Tackle risk head on
Governments, donors, the UN, humanitarian agencies and NGOs must recognise fragility as a critical risk factor for girls and build new, fully-funded coalitions to tackle it.
Ensure governments take full responsibility
Efforts to address risk factors for fragility and its consequences must ultimately enable governments to take full responsibility for ensuring the rights of all people within their country, especially the girls most at risk.
Supporting girls empowerment
Through meaningful participation in decision-making; mobilising families and communities as allies for gender equality; providing improved and inclusive gender-responsive access to services; conducting research and budget analysis to inform technical guidance on good practice programming, laws and policies; and advocating to ensure governments and other decision-makers are accountable to girls.
You can read the report here: Global Girlhood Report 2024: Fragile Future
Opinion and thought starters on girl's rights
Two blogs from staff at Save the Children.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why are girls more likely to be out of school than boys?
Multiple barriers intersect to keep girls out of classrooms: poverty means families prioritize boys' education, household responsibilities fall disproportionately on girls, schools lack safe toilets and menstrual hygiene facilities, and cultural norms view girls' education as less important. In conflict and crisis settings, these barriers intensify—our Global Girlhood Report 2024 shows girls are 2.5 times more likely than boys to be out of school in conflict-affected countries, and 110 million crisis-affected girls are currently denied education.
What is child marriage and why does it happen?
Child marriage is any formal or informal union where one or both parties are under 18.
According to UNICEF, 12 million girls are married each year before turning 18. It happens for complex reasons: poverty (families see it as economic survival), cultural traditions, lack of education alternatives, and crisis situations where families believe marriage will protect daughters.
Our Global Girlhood Report 2024 documents how humanitarian crises cause child marriage rates to surge as families resort to desperate measures. The consequences are severe: girls who marry young are more likely to experience domestic violence, drop out of school, face dangerous early pregnancies, and remain trapped in poverty.
How do humanitarian crises specifically affect girls?
Our Global Girlhood Report 2024 reveals that among 470 million girls living in crisis-affected countries, girls face compounded disadvantages: they're 2.5 times more likely than boys to be out of school in conflict zones, they face escalated violence risk in overcrowded displacement camps, families resort to child marriage as an economic coping mechanism, and healthcare systems collapse precisely when girls need maternal and reproductive health services most.
When disaster strikes, girls pay the steepest price.
How does Save the Children work to empower girls?
We combine direct support for girls with systemic change.
This means: keeping girls in school through cash assistance and infrastructure improvements; preventing and responding to violence; advocating for laws and policies that protect girls' rights; supporting girl-led movements so girls themselves can drive change; providing emergency response specifically addressing girls' needs in crises; and working with families and communities to shift harmful attitudes and practices.
Our approach recognizes that real change requires working at multiple levels simultaneously.
What impact has Save the Children had on girls' rights?
In Sierra Leone, our advocacy contributed to 2024 legislation prohibiting child marriage—in a country where 30% of girls were previously married before 18.
Our girl-led movement work has supported hundreds of girls across Colombia, Malawi, Bolivia, Nigeria, Uganda, and Yemen to form autonomous feminist groups.
In DRC, our education programme reached over 60,000 out-of-school children in 2024, more than half of them girls, helping them catch up on missed learning and transition into vocational training.
Our Global Girlhood Report 2024 documents evidence from our programmes showing that targeted interventions for girls in crisis settings lead to rebounding school enrollment and dropping child marriage rates.
How can I support girls' rights?
Supporting organizations like Save the Children that work directly with girls and communities creates lasting change.
You can also: advocate for policies that protect girls' rights, challenge gender stereotypes in your own community, support girls' education initiatives, speak out against child marriage and gender-based violence, and amplify girls' voices when they speak about issues affecting them.
Our Global Girlhood Report 2024 shows that change is possible when individuals, organizations, and governments prioritize girls' rights—especially in humanitarian crises where needs are most acute.
