Dearly Belated: Congress Finally Completes FY 2024 Appropriations & Continues Status Quo on Global Family Planning Funding and Policy
Support the Keeping Girls in School Act
There are nearly 130 million girls today who aren’t in school. While there has been some progress toward gender equity in primary education, massive gaps still exist around adolescent girls receiving a secondary education. According to UNICEF, 42% of countries globally have achieved gender parity in lower secondary education (7th-9th grades), and only 24% in upper secondary education (10th-12th grades). While there are many social and economic challenges contributing to these disparities, issues related to girls’ sexual and reproductive health and rights are inextricably linked to their educational attainment.
The Keeping Girls in School Act identifies 15 barriers to adolescent girls’ education, several of which are tied to girls’ sexual and reproductive health and rights and their bodily autonomy, including child marriage, early pregnancy and motherhood, female genital mutilation, gender-based violence, HIV infection and a lack of appropriate sanitary facilities and menstrual hygiene products.
We encourage you to stand up for the rights of girls and young women to receive an education by passing the Keeping Girls in School Act.
This legislation:
- Outlines barriers that girls face in their pursuit of secondary education, including early pregnancy and child marriage;
- Requires the development of a U.S. Global Strategy to Empower Adolescent Girls to be reviewed and updated every five years; and
- Authorizes the U.S. Agency for International Development to support innovative, results-based and traditional grant programs designed to reduce the barriers that adolescent girls face to receiving an education.
To be added as a cosponsor of the Keeping Girls in School Act, please reach out to staff in the offices of Representative Lois Frankel and Senator Jeanne Shaheen.