Why focus on girls?  

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Girls make up half of the world’s young population, yet work on children’s rights issues doesn’t always acknowledge how girls are specifically affected. Admittedly this is also true of CRIN. For years we thought that girls’ rights were sufficiently covered in mainstream children’s rights campaigning, but we were wrong. We realised that girls’ rights aren't addressed in a radical enough way to challenge the status quo. 

In view of this, we’re refocusing how we explore children’s rights issues to ensure our work is gender-conscious and pushes the boundaries of existing advocacy. This is part of us practising what we preach in The CRIN Code, which sets out our principles and the direction of our work. In particular, the Code’s principle on ‘Feminism, not patriarchy’ isn’t just about combatting gender-based discrimination, but breaking all power structures that benefit the few and serve to reinforce one another. In the following we present how we’ll hold ourselves accountable to both this and girls’ human rights.

The new approach

We’ve developed the following principles to guide this approach:

  • Gender mainstreaming: For all new issues, research and projects we’ll identify whether, how and why girls are particularly affected. For instance, will the climate crisis have a greater impact on girls? Do justice systems treat girls differently because of their gender?  

  • Gender diversity: Gender and sexuality are fluid, with constantly changing identities, expressions, and attitudes towards them. There is no one 'correct' understanding, and even what is progressive today could become outdated or oppressive. All gender experiences should be affirmed, regardless of whether they fit expected categories.

  • Intersectionality: Gender issues are part of a bigger picture and girls aren’t a homogenous group. It’s not just about gender discrimination, but how it interacts with overlapping forms of oppression that make some girls worse off than others. 

  • Networking and collaboration: We’re not the only or the first organisation to apply a gender lens on children’s rights issues, so we want to join existing efforts and support the work of others, including youth-led girls’ rights groups. 

  • Rights-based response: Reacting to the symptoms of inequality won’t get rid of it; we need to tackle the root causes, with human rights as the benchmark. Our work will seek radical change in how girls are viewed and treated in society and law. 

Next steps

We’ve analysed our current and past work and set out the following priorities: 

  • Bodily integrity. Autonomy over one’s body is a basic human right, but paternalistic policies on reproductive health services and comprehensive sexuality education restrict this right for girls. 

  • Digital rights. Neglected within children’s rights in the digital environment are gender stereotyping in the tech world, online gender-based harassment and abuse, and sexism ingrained in artificial intelligence. 

  • Environment and justice. Girls face specific challenges in using legal systems to enforce their environmental rights, while the climate crisis is already having a disproportionate impact on girls. 

  • National security. Girls face specific harms as part of counter-terrorism measures and military recruitment of under-18s, including sexism and sexual violence. 

  • Violence. Institutional sexual violence against children, as well as harmful sexual behaviour by under-18s, has a clear but neglected impact on girls.