pending agenda to guarantee the rights of children

In the international framework of the International Day of the Girl, it is essential to insist on the need to protect the rights of children in Mexico and the rest of the world. Especially in terms of access to education, health, recreation, and the persistence of child labor and other practices such as forced marriage and domestic and sexual violence.

Access to education and health

One of the basic rights whose access presents great gaps of inequalities is that of education. Girls, in particular, face barriers to effectively accessing this basic right.

In Mexico, girls and adolescents still drop out of school or register lower academic achievement for reasons of gender, such as myths about menstruation, unwanted pregnancies, domestic violence or overload of household chores or care for third parties.

According to figures from Coneval, 12% of adolescents dropped out of school because they got married or had a union and another 11% because they got pregnant or had a child.

The lack of economic resources is another of the main factors that have a greater impact on girls, especially those who live in rural communities or are in neighborhoods affected by insecurity.

At the last cut, in Mexico 6.1% of girls between the ages of 8 and 11 who live in rural areas do not know how to read or write. For urban communities the figure drops to 2.7 percent.

On the other hand, access to the fundamental right to health is not a reality for all boys and girls in this country: 3 out of 10 people under the age of 17 are not covered by medical and hospital services.

child labor

One of the most persistent violations of the rights of minors is forced labor, which also has a gender bias, while thousands of girls are working in economic sectors, they also face an overload of domestic work (paid and unpaid). paid).

In Mexico, there are 1.3 million girls between the ages of 5 and 17 in child labor, according to figures from the National Child Labor Survey (ENTI) of the Inegi.

Half of the girls and adolescents who are working have as their main reasons: the need for additional income at home, or the need for money to pay for school and other expenses.

Just over 50% of the girls who are in a situation of child labor, also faced working days of up to 14 hours with an income perception of a maximum minimum wage.

The figures show how the most vulnerable girls in socioeconomic and geographical terms are the ones who are in the front line of exposure to child labor, so closing these gaps is essential to eradicate this practice.

Forced marriage and violence

Although it might be thought that the home is the safest place for minors, on many occasions this is not the case. Millions of boys and girls in the country face emotional, physical and even sexual violence within their homes, or in places related to the family and their close circle.

About 5 million minors are sexually abused each year, and more than half of these assaults occur within homes. Nearly 60%, moreover, is violence perpetrated by a member of the family.

For girls, the vulnerability is greater. In some communities in the country there are still cases of forced marriage or “exchanges” of girls and adolescents for paid domestic work.

In Mexico, 4 out of every 100 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 are married or in a union. Additionally, 20% of women between the ages of 20 and 24 reported that they had their first union while still underage, according to figures from the National Survey of Demographic Dynamics (Enadid) of the Inegi.

Some reports carried out in communities in Chiapas and Oaxaca show how in these places fathers and mothers “sell” their underage daughters so that they marry adult men or so that other families take them to the cities and be their employees. domestic.

These, and other forms of violence, leave girls out of the possibility of living their childhoods and adolescences in full exercise of their rights and determine much of what their adult life will be like.

It is necessary and urgent to develop public policies with an intersectional perspective that guarantee all minors a life free of violence, discrimination and marginalization.