Confronting Concerns youth responds to request by UNICEF regarding violence and discrimination against girls worlwide


“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.”

- Margaret Mead

December 14, 2006

A small group of thoughtful and committed young women (ages 14-17) have agreed to meet several times to discuss and to give their insight regarding violence and discrimination against the girl children worldwide. This group of young people gathered together is responding to a request by authors of a report which will be presented to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. These young women want to participate in the discussion.

These young women invited by the Network for Peace through Dialogue will thus participate in a forum “Stop Violence and Discrimination against Girls” which is facilitated through UNICEF.

At their first meeting the girls who already knew each other from their shared neighborhood in Harlem began by telling one another why they were interested in this dialogue. One remembered the movie she had seen a year ago on Human Trafficking and wanted to learn more. Another wanted to learn more about the issue and was concerned for other girls in such bad situations. Another said she was glad to be asked and was delighted that as a youth she was asked to participate and to make suggestions. All brought positive energy to the group with a desire to have their insights reported.

The facilitator introduced some concepts regarding the program and then the girls who each had a copy of the paper “The Girl Child Today" read out loud to each other the three real life stories presented in the paper. Tanisha and Sexual Abuse, Xiuhua and the Right to Education and Middle East Youth and Hope for Peace.

The following are some of their comments:

----We did not realize that prostitution is happening right here in our own city

----We are concerned that older men don’t seem to care about age and hire young girls

----Where are the consequences for men in the situation of prostitution?

----Group debated about the equality between men and women. Three said they felt in the United States that men and women get equal treatment. One member said definitely this is not the case and talked about unequal salary as an example and asked where are the women in Congress?

December 20, 2006

Kiara was not able to come this week as she had a practice at school. Janelle had e-mailed that she could not come either. Jahmala, Erica and Rochelle had all spoken with their mothers and some other family members regarding our concluding question about equal pay for equal work for women and men. One of the mothers felt that women had equal opportunity but her uncle said there was not equality in some positions i.e. construction. One girl whose mother did not agree that there was equal pay was a construction worker but she did say she was respected in her work by her fellow workers. Another mother said the signs of equality were better than it used to be but is not equal as to women to men.

The group also discussed how much possibility would it be for a woman who married young to continue in school. One said it would make no difference but two said that young woman would be tied down with children and other responsibilities and that was not going to happen with them!

The girls issued some ideas on how to encourage girls not to get into trouble

--Keep them off the streets. Give enough freedom but not too much freedom. It seems that limits should be defined for youth. They agreed to this although they had a more difficult time talking about the limits.

Options should be available. i.e. movie night, pizza parties, dances, etc.

Don’t be too strict (Being strict was not too well defined)

Provide free college for girls

Give positive encouragement to girls.

They recommended that the laws be enforced on child abuse and that there be equal education for girls and boys.

January 10, 2007

Rochelle and Jahmala were the only ones able to make the third meeting. Jahmala reported that at her school the principal and the teachers have begun to address these questions. She had been telling them about the meetings and said she felt empowered that they were responding positively. Some of the girls in the school did not like the idea though of the discussion.

Rochelle and Jahmala decided to continue to review the youth version of the report and then to respond individually on the computer printout. They began with the human rights violations. They did not feel any were missing but felt that sexual exploitation and slave like practices were the most serious. They felt too that to add to the recommendations was the idea to engage more with youth their own ages.

Then they focused on Discrimination. They stated that the inequality has been there for a very long time and that boys just see things differently. Boys and girls are going to clash. One told a story of a boy, a rather nice boy but when he talks to her his talks to her as if he owns her. This was very disagreeable to her. This brought us to the question of how can we get a boy to become part of our Confronting Concerns planning group when already we have four girls who are interested. They did agree that they would think about this until the next time.

In the listing of the cause of discrimination and violence they added girls who come from dysfunctional families, runaways and poor girls.

They had some difficulty about what to do personally about the whole issue. They had mentioned before that perhaps they could lead the Confronting Concerns group (which they were going to help plan) to focus on this issue of discrimination and violence against girls and women.

Other strategies for empowering girls were suggested by them: Role modeling and listening to them.

Then they sat down at two different computers and completed and sent in their questionnaire to UNICEF.

This project was completed by:

Kathleen Kanet, RSHM
Network for Peace through Dialogue
240 E. 93rd St. #14B
New York, NY 10128
212-426-5818
kkanet@networkforpeace.com

Copyright pending, Network for Peace Through Dialogue