West Africa looks at violence against schoolgirls

To improve girls’ education, West African governments must adopt national policies addressing all aspects of violence against schoolgirls—who face rape by teachers, verbal abuse by male students and forced early marriage by parents—a grouping of policymakers, teachers’ unions and civil society organisations has said. “For all girls to go to school, the question of violence against girls must be solved,” said Victorine Djitrinou, international education, advocacy and campaign coordinator for ActionAid International, which organized a conference in Saly, Senegal, on violence against girls in school December 1–3.

West Africa is home to most of the countries with the worst educational gender disparities in the world. Across the region, there are more than eight million girls out of primary school—a figure 1.6 million higher than that for boys, according to the 2008 Global Monitoring Report of the Education for All movement. Read the article in IRIN News.