United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (UN SDG) #5 aims to end discrimination and violence against girls and women everywhere.
According to UN SDG #5, there are numerous challenges facing hundreds of millions of girls around the world. Massive funding and many years of effort would be required to even make a dent in these problems.
The main problems we are working to address at Regrow include violence, rape, forced marriage, teenage pregnancy, female genital mutilation (FGM), lack of access to healthcare, poor education, discrimination, food insecurity, lack of clean water, poor sanitation, and impacts of climate change.
A 2024 UNICEF report found that over 230 million women and girls around the world have been the victims of FGM. As horrible as that sounds, it is unfathomable that these numbers have increased 15% over the past eight years.
Many girls in Kenya reach adolescence with very few choices for the future. Due to high poverty and illiteracy rates, as well as a very traditional view of gender roles, the only viable option most girls think they have is early marriage.
Unfortunately, in many pastoralist communities (including where we work in rural Northern Kenya) there are deeply-rooted cultural practices that are retrogressive and destroy the lives of young girls. The primary issues include FGM, beading, rape, forced abortion, early marriage, and HIV / AIDS.
We have been shocked to see that there is very little government and philanthropic support for these horrible problems facing girls.
GUIDANCE FROM THE UNITED NATIONS
"You can fund education campaigns to curb cultural practices like female genital mutilation and change harmful laws that limit the rights of women and girls and prevent them from achieving their full potential."
