Because I am a Girl: Urban and Digital Frontiers - Plan International

who can take an active part in planning
and running city life – and ensure that
cities are both safe and girl-friendly.
• In developing countries, school
attendance for girls aged 10 to 14 is 18
per cent higher in urban than in rural
areas, and 37 per cent higher for young
women aged 15 to 19. 5
• In Bangladesh, 31 per cent of
adolescent girls who had migrated
from rural to urban areas for work were
married by the age of 18, compared to
71 per cent in rural areas. 6
• Overall, 79 per cent of city births have
a skilled attendant compared with 28
per cent of births in rural areas. 7
• Skilled birth attendants are present
at 78 per cent of deliveries in urban
settings in Bolivia, 60 per cent in
Pakistan, almost 52 per cent in Angola
and 47 per cent in Yemen. Skilled
deliveries in rural areas in these
countries are two to four times lower. 8
• In urban areas in Benin 25 per cent of
pregnant adolescent girls receive HIV
counselling and testing, whereas in
rural areas the figure is only 6 per cent. 9
• In the city of Ceará, Brazil, young
people were involved in budget setting
and in training other youth. As a result
of their efforts, an additional $750,000
was allocated to children and young
people in 2005. 10
Where cities are not working well for girls
Despite the many advantages of living in
a city, for adolescent girls city living also
means an increased risk of violence and
abuse.
• A study of human rights violations
in Dhaka, Bangladesh, found that
adolescent girls were the most
vulnerable group when it came to
sexual harassment and rape. 11
• Many of the benefits of cities do not
apply to slums or shanty towns, for
example. In these, many girls never
start school or drop out before finishing
secondary school.
• More than half of the boys interviewed
in a Rwanda study and more than
three-quarters of the girls, including 35
per cent of those under 10, admitted
they were sexually active; 63 per cent
of the boys said they had forced a girl
to have sex with them; 93 per cent of
the girls reported having been raped. 12
• Violence against girls and women may
be more common in the city than in
rural areas: in Brazil 24.5 per cent of
female respondents in the city and
15.9 per cent in the provinces reported
violence. 13
• In Pokara, Nepal, 90 per cent of street
girls were sexually abused by hotel and
restaurant owners and by people in
places of work. Junkyard owners, older
boys in the group, friends, local people
and tractor drivers were also among the
perpetrators. 14
• In Ghana, adolescents in urban areas
were significantly more likely to have
experienced coerced sex than those in
rural areas. 15
• In the Netherlands, an online survey of
girls in cities conducted for this report
found that 40 per cent of girls between
the ages of 11 and 18 said they did not
feel safe walking around their city at
night. This rose to 63 per cent of 17 and
18 year olds.
In Chapter Three, we focus on one group
who are most vulnerable in the city –
adolescent street girls. Although accurate
estimates are difficult to come by, numbers
of street children are rising. Girls apparently
constitute fewer than 30 per cent of street
Girls at work
in Accra,
Ghana.
Scott Mains / Media Cocktail, AGED 24, UK / www.shootnations.org
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