January 24 – National Girl Child Day

National Girl Child Day is observed on January 24 every year across India since 2008. The day is celebrated to increase the awareness among the society about all the inequalities faced by the girl child in the country. National Girl Child Day was started as a national girls development mission by the Government of India.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted “On National Girl Child Day, I salute the unparalleled accomplishments of the girl child. Their role in nation building is paramount“.

Shameful facts 

• Female literacy rate in India is 53.87%. 
• One-Third of young girls in India are malnourished. 
• According to the statistics released by the National Crime Records Bureau, 93 women are being raped every day in India. (One in every twenty minutes).
• In India 47% of girls are subjected to Child Marriage (UN Report).
• The United Nations has declared that India is the most deadly country for female children, and that in 2012 female children aged between 1 and 5 were 75 percent more likely to die.
• India ranked 4th as world’s most dangerous countries for women. 
• India is one among the top countries in Human Trafficking. According to the CBI, 90% of trafficking took place within the country and that there were some 3 million prostitutes, of which about 40 percent were children who are less than 15 years old. 
• According to the National Family Health Survey estimate, 300,000 girls go “missing” in India each year. Other studies have put the number between 150,000 and 500,000.