United Nations Radio

Afghan girls

Narrator: Honour killings, domestic violence, sexual violence and dowry murders are just a few of the forms of violence inflicted upon young girls around the world daily. Cases of violence against girls have been rising, causing concern for members of the international community. Some of them have joined forces to combat it and they recently used the UN General Assembly as the floor to voice their concerns.
UN Radio's Marsha Branch has more.

Branch: "It's an issue that concerns us all, and we have the power to do something about it." The words of Maxime Verhagen, Foreign Minister of the Netherlands at a breakfast meeting of the UN General Assembly on Friday. He was speaking about violence against girls and he challenged all in attendance to do what is needed to end it in their respective countries. Stories of young girls falling victim to heinous crimes are not just restricted to the developing world. As Mr. Verhagen points out, it is happening everywhere.

Verhagen: Elizabeth Fitzel of Austria was held captive in the basement of her parents' home for twenty-four years and had seven children by her father. J.C. Degare of the United States was abducted eighteen years ago and resurfaced only recently. And all that time she had been held captive by her abductor, who fathered her two children.

Branch: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also attended the meeting and stressed that violence again children, and in this case girls, must not be viewed as a secondary issue that is shoved to the sidelines of UN debates. Rather, it is a serious matter that must have prominence on the UN's global agenda.

Clinton: Often times my press - I'll only speak for the American press - will pose a question that goes something like this: Why are you spending so much time on these issues that are less important or not as significant as the ones that are really at the heart of foreign policy? And I usually patiently explain for about the millionth time, that this is the heart of foreign policy. Because after all, what are we doing? We are trying to improve the lives of the people that we represent and the people who share this planet with us.

Branch: To be effective, efforts to combat violence against girls should not only focus on girls as victims but should also include them in the discussion. And that is exactly what Mayra and Thandiwe have been doing. Both girls are recipients of the Children's Peace Prize which is awarded annually to outstanding children whose efforts have made a difference in countering problems affecting the world's children.

Tandiwah: I'm fighting for the right to education since it is the basic human right for every child. Later I joined a children right's club where we go in the community. We teach people about children's rights. So that is the reason I was selected as a children's peace prize winner in 2007

Mayra: I live in a Slum in Rio De Janero and there is a war going on between the police and drug dealers. I was thinking to myself what could I do to stop this and make more peace. So I decided to make a protest with my people in the slum and we have this protest with around 300 people and after that we got more peace in the place where we live.

Branch: That was Mayra from Brazil and before her, Thandiwe from Zambia.

Producer: Marsha Branch
Duration: 3'09"