Topic:
Country: Guatemala
Delegate Name: Ananya Arulmurugan
Women Committee
Right to Education
Guatemala
Ananya Arulmurugan
Forest Hills Eastern High School
The UN’s SDG 4 addresses the topic of a woman’s right to education seriously, and ensures inclusive and equitable quality education for all by 2030. By accepting human’s rights laws, most of the world’s countries have affirmed women’s rights to education. Article 10 of CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women), is a provision on women and girl’s rights to education. It aims not only to help women gain access to education, but to also improve the quality of education that they are getting. Article 14 of this same treaty declares the rights of rural women in education. Investing in girl’s education provides many positive effects, including rising national growth rates, lower child mortality rates, lower maternal mortality rates, and drops in child stunting.
Many women in Guatemala stop their studies due to pregnancy. To increase women, especially indigenous women in Guatemala, UNESCO opened two Malala centers. It provides girls and women from the community the support to access the education that they need. Despite public education being provided for free, many Guatemalan women still do not attend school. About 20% of the population is illiterate, and 60% of the indigenous population. Over 2,000,000 children do not attend school in Guatemala, the majority being indigenous girls.
Guatemala desires a campaign to inform more women about their opportunities for education, as this is a big problem. It would also like to reeducate teachers and administration to lessen bias towards girls and other communities that could be likely to be discriminated against.
Women also need better Maternal health care and education on these topics since this is a leading cause of the lack of education.
