Across the world, girls face the double discrimination of their gender and age, leaving them suffering at the bottom of the social ladder.   Girls are denied access to health services and education, and also face extremely high levels of violence, abuse, and harassment..

And yet, no country has emerged from poverty without investing in its girls. And yet girls in the poorest regions of the world are among the most disadvantaged people on the planet. By the age of 13, uneducated girls face early marriage, child pregnancy and a life of poverty and discrimination. And so the cycle continues for their children. 

Because I am a Girl is Plan's campaign to fight gender inequality, promote girls' rights and break this cycle of poverty.  

 THE FACTS…

•    Sixty-two million girls are not in primary school.

•    Over 900 million girls and women are living on less than a dollar a day.

•    About 450 million women suffer from stunted growth as a result of being poorly fed in    childhood.

•    More than 100 million girls under 18, some as young as 12, are expected to marry over the next decade.

Here's what you can do 

1   Sponsor a girl

2   Raise funds by running the Flora Mini Marathon

3   Make a donation to Plan's Girl Friendly School Project in Togo

4  Join us on Facebook

• Download Plan Ireland's Because I Am a Girl 2009 Press Release
• Download a Summary of the report

Girl reports

Plan is producing one girl report each year in the run up to 2015, the target year for the Millennium Development Goals.

Because I am a Girl: The State of The World's Girls 2009

Girls in the Global Economy: Adding it all up

Because I am a Girl: the state of the world's girls 2008

Special Focus: In the shadow of war. The 2008 report examines the state of girls in conflict situations around the world.
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Because I am a Girl: the state of the world's girls 2007

The first in a series of reports following 135 girls born in 2006 to see how their gender impacts on their lives.
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