Topic: Educational Rights of Girls
Country: Senegal
Delegate Name: Brielle Ashford
School: Roeper School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Senegal position papers GLIMUN 2013 committees
Esteemed delegates, honorable chair,
The people of Senegal view children as gifts to the world. They are thought to be the generation of the future and therefore they will inevitably enrich society as well as the economy with their presence. Despite this positive outlook, rights for girls in Senegal are more limited compared to their male counterparts.
Sexual discrimination begins at an early age for Senegalese children, and endures for the rest of their lives. For adults, only 6 women are literate for every 10 men, and although this gap is pronounced, increased school enrollment for girls has begun to shrink this. However this gap continues to persist when it comes to daughters of the impoverished, as the use of French and Wolof, the dominant languages of instruction, are less likely to be reinforced in the home environment of the poor. While enrollment of boys and girls today is similar throughout primary school, this educational gap begins to grow in secondary school.
Although arranged marriage is illegal, nearly 40% of Senegalese girls admit being forced into marriage before the age of 18. Many poorer girls do not remain in school beyond age 15, as they are likely to be married at that age. This is proven to be both emotionally as well as psychologically damaging for girls who experience this. For girls who do remain in school beyond age 15, the percentage who graduates secondary school at age 18 is almost identical to boys. This problem must be fixed to give all girls and women the rights they deserve, and for them to become agents of change in Senegal as well as for all other nations in need of greater equality for women.
Senegal believes the best way to fix these pressing problems are through developing nations not only ending tuition, as most developing nations have ‘officially’ done in the past decade, but also eliminating ‘school fees’ which provide a similar barrier that families of poor girls frequently cannot overcome. This committee and UNESCO should urge each nation to create a fund to be used to provide real free schooling for girls in particular, and to create public education outreach to teach families why arranged marriage before girls complete high school limits the opportunity of the next generation. In addition, this UN committee needs to encourage nations to prevent parents forcing arranged marriages on their children.
Senegal looks forward to working with fellow delegations to solve the many aspect of this issue.
