A great number of young girls around the world are not in school. Simply because they are not allowed. They are denied education because of discrimination, poverty, neediness and culture.

These young girls have the same dreams as boys. They want to learn and interact with people the same age as them. They want to be kids. But again and again, they are treated as second class. They are abused, exploited and completely disregarded in many different countries. Figures from UNICEF a year ago demonstrated that around 32 million young girls of primary school and 29 million of lower secondary school are not provided education. Another study from ONE Campaign says 130 million girls around the world are not in school. (theirworld)

Some reasons girls are either not provided an education or taken out of school early are, early marriage, pregnancy, violence at school, lack of funding, child/domestic labor, poor sanitation, and simply because they are girls. Marriage is often seen as a higher priority for girls than education. Boys can also have this problem but it is much more common for girls to be forced into marriage at a young age. Some girls chose to drop out of school because of the violence they have to face. (theirworld)

Girls are four times more likely to be taken out of school than boys with the same past. And this is sadly normalized around the world. This is mostly happening in poorer parts of the world like South Sudan, Central African Republic, Niger, Afghanistan, Chad, Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Liberia and Ethiopia.

While Malala is one activist for girls ' education, there are many more. Yes, we should know about big ones but also small activists. For example, Fatimata is an activist for girls' education. Also Menuka Gurung, and Farkhonda Tahery. These girls have been in big tragedies just like Malala. According to thedenialofgirlseducation.org Fatimata is a 19 year old teen activist from Sierra Leone and had to drop out of school to be a mother.

Fatimata is an activist who believes many girls cheapen their lives and they are the reason for not getting education- or it is because of sexual harassment. She sees a different reason for inequality in girls’ education beyond laws rules set out by governments, religions or even families.

Menuka Gurung is another teen activist for girls education. She is 19 years old and from Nepal. Menuka believes, “If we want equality then we need to involve boys as well as girls in advocacy. The boys should know how girls feel when they are teased, or when the boys are allowed to go out but girls can only stay out until 7:00 PM,” Menuka feels that “When we talk about women in business it is about more than sewing, knitting and household work. Some people in Nepal feel that women can't go beyond that.

Menuka is an activist who thinks that boys are needed to help girls' education. And my last example is Farkhonda Tahery. She is a teen activist; 16 years old, and from Afghanistan. Farkhonda believes that “Girls are treated as second class citizens in her community”. She has proven a point about boys making a difference in girls’ education.

Girls in Afghanistan and Pakistan or A&P. As I will refer to later in this chapter, have had issues with girls' education. For example, boys have a higher acceptance rate than girls do in school in A&P. and as if that wasn't enough girls barely even get to go to school at all.

A group of people called the Taliban believe that girl’s shouldn't go to school. They are also willing to take action to prevent girls even going to school. For example as Malala started to speak out they tried to kill her to stop the spreading of her words, but as that didn’t work her words just spread even more.

This is definitely not beneficial to Afghanistan or Pakistan. Malala once said “I won't be a doctor and one day youll be sick” this shows that because girls cannot go to school and get an education that they can't have jobs like being a doctor when they’re older so they cannot cure sick people.

At a time like this during the Covid-19 pandemic we need all the doctors that we can get.

What can we do to help promote girls education in Pakistan and Afghanistan? Well one thing that we could do is try to advocate for their rights to school, sign petitons, maybe even go to marches about it if possible.