Sarah, a 20-year-old housewife, gets beaten up every time by her husband for not being able to cook, and she totally agrees that he has the right to do that. And there are many others like her!
Violence against Women from their partners is one of the most widespread public issues affecting the individual, family, and community. As not only does it affect the women’s mental and physical health, but also that of their children, relatives, and neighbors. Thus, it is important to tackle the reasons behind it.
Shockingly, the proportion of women who believe that a husband is justified in beating his wife is high and increasing worldwide. For instance, an average of 53% of women and girls worldwide believe that men are justified to beat their wives. The highest concentration of this positive attitude towards domestic violence is in Africa, south Asia, and west south America.. Use the graph below to discover the percentages of each country. Tap anywhere to view the top countries (countries with highest percentages of women justifying the husbands’ violence).
Women believe it is justifiable for men to beat up his wife when she:
Argues with him
Refuses to have sex
Burns the food
Goes out without telling him
Neglects the children.
Among these reasons, neglecting the children constitutes the top reason of justifying domestic violence with 26.32%.
But why is this the case?
Early marriage highly impacts this mindset. Child marriage limits the young girls’ power, resources, knowledge, social support, freedom, and independence. Young married girls have little power in relation to their husbands and in-laws, which makes them believe that a man is sometimes justified to beat his wife. For instance, Girls who marry early are more likely to believe that a man is justified in beating his wife than women who marry later. As seen in the figure below, there is a very strong correlation between the number of women who were married early and number of women who believed that husbands are justified in beating their wives throughout the years.
Also, a negative correlation with the total governmental expenditure on education is shown, implying that government can play a huge role in limiting this mindset, through increasing their expenditure on education as it has shown a great influence on the proportions of early marriage, and women believing it is okay to beat up wives. For this reason, laws should be released to prohibit early marriage and motivate girls to get higher educational attainment.
Having equality in educational attainment among genders will empower women and stop them from accepting to get beaten up by their husbands. This is related to goal 4 of the UN, which considers eliminating the disparities among genders to ensure equal access for all to affordable and quality technical, vocational education among all levels: tertiary, primary secondary and higher education.
Finally, Education is essential, but allowing young people’s voices to be heard is also crucial to empowering the next generation. If women feel heard, they will feel more empowered and thus they are more likely to instigate change.
Did you know?
Even though the average percentage of Children out of school is declining over the years, studies showed that almost 20% of children in low-income countries and 10% in lower middle-income countries are still out of primary school in 2021.
What are these children doing?
The highest % of children in employment is found in the low-income countries, followed by the lower middle-income countries where the highest % of children out of school coexists.
This shows that these countries cannot afford the education of their children and thus shift them to work instead in order to support their families’ living expenses.
Who should we blame?
While these countries have the lowest income, they score the highest birth rates compared to other countries as shown below.
The low-income countries have a 44% birth rate reflected by their ignorance on the importance of birth control and contraceptive prevalence with only 23%.
Is 23% enough? No.
Children have the right to be educated, and a big responsibility falls on the parents who give birth to children and force them to work, knowing that they cannot afford their education.
The access to electricity and internet usage across the years has been increasing in all the countries including the low-income ones.
However, it is important to highlight that with all this increase, only 40% of the population in low-income countries have access to electricity and only 21% of them use the internet in 2020.
This evolution has pushed the adult literacy rate across the years to increase.
The more the adults have literacy and can surf through internet facilities, the more they understand the importance of children education and therefore decreasing the % of children out of school.
The main reason behind the decrease in % of children out of school through years is the increase in education expenditures in primary public institutions, along with the increase in access to electricity and internet usage which facilitates the education feasibility for the children and the adults literacy in these countries.
Knowing that the low-income countries cannot afford the education of their children, while their birth rate is increasing, the Department of Economic and Social Affairs in the United Nations should ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all #SDG4 #SDG4.1 by supporting these countries through funding the tuition fees of their children along with educating the parents on the importance of contraceptive prevalence and maybe set regulations in collaboration with the governments to limit the birth rate allowed in the low income countries.
NO to child labor, YES to safe and quality education
Growing up in Lebanon has been a challenge for all of us. We went through wars, political instability, economic crisis, and many more shocking events. Nevertheless, we are considered lucky enough to have a safe space to go back to; we went to school where we forgot our problems and had continuous support to continue our studies and live a “normal” life.
I met Samir 4 years ago on a random Tuesday morning, I was sick and didn’t go to school that day, but he had no excuse to be out of school. I was walking down the street and saw a kid around 11 years old smoking. I approached him and told him to put down the cigarette and asked him why he was crying. Samir explained that he didn’t want to go to work. He had to go against his will, because he needed to provide basic needs for his family. “If it was up to me, I would rather be at school learning and playing with friends. But this is my life.” said Samir.
Throughout my childhood in Tripoli, I always felt that it is not fair that I am going to school while other children my age dropped out of school and worked every day under harsh conditions.
Samir is not the only kid prevented from living a normal life, more than half of kids living in Tripoli are forced to go to work.
The Tripoli municipality and the Lebanese University- Social and medical work department with technical support from UNICEF collaborated in order to prevent Child Labor. Students from the Lebanese University conducted a Rapid Need Assessment (RNA) focusing on Child Labor aiming to give evidence on the conditions of the working children. The RNA targeted 500 working children involved in different types of work.
After analyzing the data collected, it is clear that these children need all the help they can get in order to get out of the conditions that they are living in. They have the right to education and to feel safe. They are working under harsh conditions, with the knowledge of their parents.
As a first step, the municipality of Tripoli created a safe room where kids can spend time without worrying about other responsibilities.
The next steps are:
-Raising awareness for Kids and their Parents through activities, plays and others.
-Creating a board of NGO and municipality representatives in order to decrease the percentage of school dropouts.
– Municipality should not allow kids to work.
An investment in knowledge pays the best interest. – Benjamin Franklin
Education is the pillar of society. Education is the only way to a good life. Education is the future.
But do it smartly.
With every generation coming on, every aspect of life is changing whether it’s the way you communicate with others, how you move from one place to another, EVERYTHING. Continuous learning will always show good results, either in the short term or the long term. However, one must not overdo it. Looking back at the last two decades, humanity has experienced several major events, COVID having the biggest impact. As businesses shut down, lockdowns and social distancing imposed, numerous people found themselves jobless, regardless what their experience or level of education is.
We can see on the map how unemployment rates have been increasing around the world in the last decade, especially in the last two years when COVID had a heavy impact. To dig deeper into the level of education of unemployed individuals, we can see in the second graph how individuals with basic, intermediate, and advanced education faced an increase in unemployment rates between 2019 and 2020. This graph shows had advancement in education has led to lower unemployment rates, hence showing the impact that higher education had during the COVID crisis where firms were cutting down on expenses by keeping individuals who can handle a heavier load. In the Education graph, we can see how figures for most educational levels have increased in 2020. This shows how the pandemic has reminded people of the importance of continuous education, however, the impact of this increase was not seen directly.
Continuing education is definitely a great plan for people to follow in order to keep improving and moving forward in their careers, lives, or personal growth. However, one should allocate enough time and effort to decide on the next step they are planning to take as the pandemic has shown us how some people with specific levels of education in certain fields are irreplaceable. More awareness should be shared with people of all ages, to show them the importance of education, and more importantly how to decide the optimal path for them.
“When children must split their time between fetching water and protecting their families’ greatest wealth, the livestock, their education suffers” Marco Prates
Marta Ndimaoshitya
Meet Marta Ndimaoshitya:
Marta is a 12-year-old educated girl. “Educated?”, You might say. “Then what’s the problem?”, you might wonder. Well, the problem isn’t with Marta, it’s with Marta’s 3 siblings who have dropped out of school because there is no water for them to undertake the long walk to reach the school. The only reason Marta is able to go to school is that it is close to her home. You might have thought of many reasons why they are unable to receive proper education, but I doubt this one would have crossed your mind. Unfortunately, many children around the world live a life similar to Marta’s siblings and even worse.
The below visualization will offer a clear sight of the countries that are suffering from children being out of school the most. I wish to shed light on these countries as the aim is not just to know the number of school dropouts, it is also to help solve the major factors that render this behind each specific country.
Countries like Libya, Nigeria, Chad, Ghana, and many more experience very high numbers of children out of school. Some of the factors that render this are poverty, gender inequality, child marriage, lack of access to clean water, and armed conflict.
Recommendations:
Raise awareness on the importance of education
Provide financial support for poor families
Provide flexible, affordable, high-quality school options
