

The theme for International Day of the Girl 2025 is The Girl I Am, The Change I Lead. This one phrase speaks volumes about the value of female children and their importance to the future of our world. The advantages of investing in the lives of girls are numerous and lead to better lives for individuals, families, neighborhoods, communities, countries and the entire world. It goes without saying that if half the population of the world is harmed, it does not bode well for all people. Despite this, girls are one of the most disadvantaged groups of people in the world.
In most parts of the world, girls are forced to start the race late. This means that even though both male and female children have more or less the same race to run, this is what girls face before the race even starts: attempts to remove them from the race because of their gender (female feticide), hinder their progress (cut off access to education), silence their concerns (stigma against menstruation), place obstacles in their path (child marriage) and storm the field just to hurt them and rob them of their lives (sexual assault and exploitation).
In India and around the world, girls face injustices even before their birth and this is the result of societal discrimination against them and the lack of value accorded to the female gender as a whole. This discrimination is a vicious cycle that is both the cause and effect of problems such as preventing girls from going to school, discrimination at the workplace, dowry harassment and other injustices that girls face in almost every area of their lives. But with each generation of girls, there are leaders and changemakers who stand up to challenge these injustices.
How girls find the solution to their problems
These changemakers ask questions, challenge norms, come up with solutions and demand change. In this effort, what is required from the rest of us? When child activists such as Greta Thunberg, Malala Yousafzai or Licypriya Kangujam started raising their voices about education, the environment and other issues that impacted them, the rest of the world took notice and listened because of their thorough understanding of the subject matter and their sacrificial commitment to changing the situation for not just themselves, but everyone.
The world paid attention to these young leaders and also lauded their strength and courage. But what came after that was even more remarkable. These changemakers inspired a multitude of young girls across the world who saw themselves in these role models and began to reflect on how they could bring about change in their respective families, schools, friend circles and communities. This was a positive ripple effect that helped an often forgotten group of people reflect on how they could make their lives better and change lives for future girls.
International Day of the Girl 2025
Each year since 2011, the world observes International Day of the Girl on October 11th. Recognized by the UN, International Day of the Girl focuses on the achievements of girls, the challenges they face and implementing long term and permanent solutions to their problems. International Day of the Girl is a time for both celebration and reflection to ensure that girls in our surroundings are safe, healthy and have access to their rights. For the past 14 years, International Day of the Girl has encouraged people to do exactly this – and there have been results.
There have indeed been marked improvements in the areas of education for the girl child, menstrual health awareness, improving girl’s safety and reducing or abolishing issues such as child marriage and female feticide. The programs, services and resources of the Indian Government over the past 7 decades have made great strides in this area and seen improvements in school enrolments, literacy rates, life expectancies and more. But what is in our hands is changing our mindsets toward the girl child – and this starts in the home.
What changes can we make?
In India, alongside government and NGO initiatives to make advancements in the life of the girl child, there are immense changes that we can make – starting in our own minds. It is common for many people to harbor an unconscious bias against girls. For example, expecting girls to drop out of school so their brothers can get an education. Because of our upbringing, environment, influence and other factors, there might be many among us who are conditioned to “expect less” of girls. But whatever the reason may be, the first step is to become aware of our bias.
Here are some questions we can ask ourselves:
- Does it surprise me that more girls (than boys) suffer from child abuse?
- Does it surprise me that more girls (than boys) are trafficked?
- Does it surprise me that more girls (than boys) are out of school?
- Does it surprise me that more girls (than boys) are ashamed of their bodies?
If most of us are honest, we are inundated with news reports about girls suffering from all of the above and while we know that it is unfair and unjust, we often accept these crimes as “the way of the world”.
But a lot of these crimes can be reduced and ultimately eradicated when public opinion changes – and that starts with each one of us. Becoming aware of the ways we may be accepting things that need to be changed is the first step. Then speaking up when we hear discrimination against girls is another important aspect. This helps beat normalized discrimination and reverse its course. When we are able to reach enough people that it changes public perception on a certain issue, we can start to make real changes in the lives of people.
The Girl I Am, The Change I Lead
The theme for International Day of the Girl 2025 is The girl I am, the change I lead: Girls on the frontlines of crisis. The image that comes to mind is a girl facing her challenges despite the immense pressure of “doing what she’s told”. But right behind her are people like us – standing up with her to listen to her thoughts, support her actions and understand that the future is one that she will shape because it is she who will inherit it.
Happy International Day of the Girl!