Women's Education continues to be the biggest concern for most countries

American trends have created the illusion that women’s lack of access to education is a thing of the past. And this illusion has sustained with good reason- for a statistical compilation points out that US colleges and universities have a larger proportion of female enrollments- almost 56.4 percent to a 43.6 percent share of males.

Yet, the ground reality of this situation is far from the rosy picture these figures represent. Amongst the 10 nations of the world that have the lowest literacy rates in their female populations, all of which are below 50 percent, some of the lowest ones barely even make it above 30. All three of the worst hit are African nations- with Nigeria, Guinea and the Central African Republic sending a miserable 15, 22 and 27 percent of their girls to the most crucial stage of their growing up.  Not too far behind are countries like Benin, Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Liberia, Cote d’Ivoire, Mali and Chad, who seem to be oblivious to the waves of change that the women’s right to education movement has undergone across the globe, with a literacy rate ranging from 30 to 44 percent prevailing amongst their girls.

Still waters run deep, though. Upon inspection, this issue points out an entire labyrinth of social evils that bedevil the women of the nation. Turns out, denial of education is merely a consequence of the ripple effect caused by the prevalence of child marriage, early motherhood, human trafficking, diseases with lack of medical care, sexual violence perpetrated against women in public spaces and last but not the least- lack of sanitary facilities in the premises of the institutions.

In fact, upon further probing, a startling statistic came to the surface- the average age of a woman in most under-developed nations, when they first give birth ranges between 18 and 19 years of age. 1/5^th of 18 year old girls in developing countries double up as young, clueless mothers. South Asian countries alone, contribute to half of the total number of teenage pregnancies in the world. This trickles down into them being held back at the earlier stages of their life, in order to prepare them for marriage.

Women's Education in Africa Picture by: FengShui Dana

Furthermore, medical complications and the lack of developed facilities to combat those complications at the time of childbirth compound to early age deaths of women. Over 70,000 women die every year, out of these reasons- amounting to one of the biggest causes of death amongst girls in that age group- even more than diseases and sexual violence.

The privileged ones who do get access to school, drop out due to multiple reasons. And this dropping out rate is higher amongst the female student population- with 35  million girls being out of school opposed to 31 million boys. And sub Saharan girls contribute to 50 percent of this figure, whereas 1/4^th belong to South Asian countries.

But there is reason to be optimistic in the most shadowed areas of the world- as dropouts have dipped from 23 to 9.5 million in South Asia, and from 25 million to 17 million in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Yet given the current trends, it won’t be until 2086 that every African girl gets a secondary education.

The cause of women’s education has been championed by various activists across the world. Malala Yousufzai took a bullet to the head even, in her effort to protect an almost fundamental right.  An educated woman still has a fighting chance, to make it to echelons that can effect a positive change for the coming generations of women.  And denial of education amounts to the disarmament of a force that is otherwise unstoppable.

Demotix>