Sub-Saharan Africa

Although there have been notable gains for women globally in the last few decades, gender inequality and gender-based inequities continue to impinge upon girls’ and women’s ability to realize their rights and their full potential as citizens and equal partners in decision-making and development. In fact, for every right that has been established, there are millions of women who do not enjoy it.

In this book, studies from Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are prefaced by an introductory chapter that links current thinking on gender justice to debates on citizenship, entitlements, and law and development. A concluding chapter situates the discussion of gender justice, citizenship, and entitlements in current development debates on poverty alleviation and social exclusion. The book brings together multidisciplinary perspectives from leading feminist scholars of sociology, political science and legal studies, among others, and in doing so, provides new insights for both advocacy and research.

Millions of girls are not making it into school, despite a concerted international movement to push the cause forward. In some African countries, the gender gap is even widening. What's gone wrong? In Ethiopia, girls are sometimes abducted for marriage when they're no more than eight. In West Africa, they're recruited from poor rural families to work as domestics in coastal cities or neighbouring countries. In South Africa, a recent report by Human Rights Watch warns that sexual violence and abuse is hampering girls' access to education. And in Afghanistan, they've simply been barred from school under the Taleban regime.
Customs, poverty, fear and violence: girls still account for 60 percent of the estimated 113 million out-of-school children, and the majority live in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.