Hold On A Minute - Episode 9 - Every girl counts [Transcript]

HOST Introduction

 

00:00:00

HOST

Hello! You are listening to “Hold on a Minute!”, a podcast by UNFPA Asia and the Pacific. This podcast series presents inspiring and powerful stories on the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women across the Asia-Pacific region. I am Poupée, Chaowarat Yongjiranon, your host.

 

00:00:25

HOST

On this episode of Hold on a Minute! By UNFPA Asia-Pacific entitled, Every Girl Counts, we take a look at the dangers of child marriages and what is being done to end the inhumane practice.

 

00:00:39

HOST

Child marriage is a human rights violation. It is an issue of gender inequality and a violation of human rights of young girls, threatening their lives, health, wellbeing, and futures. Despite having laws against it in 96% of the countries around the world, the reality is legislations fail to translate to real application in real communities.

 

00:01:06

HOST

This is especially true in times of economic stress, as girls at most risk live in poor marginalized rural communities. In Southeast Asia, 36% of girls are married before the age of 18. One in ten girls are married off before the age of 15.

 

00:01:26

HOST

With the issue being so deeply rooted in harmful social and gender norms, the UNFPA-UNICEF Global programme to End Child Marriage aims to help facilitate positive choices for girls through the gender-transformative approach, promoting positive masculinity to end child marriages. This is supported by Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) to promote sexual and reproductive health of adolescents and youth.

 

00:01:55

HOST

To get up close and personal on how this really affects young girls and their communities, here is the story of Maya.

 

Feature Story - Maya

 

00:02:04

My name is Maya and I am 16. My father is a school teacher and my mother is a midwife. I have two sisters, one older and one younger.

 

00:02:18

I live in a town, not too far from the city or the mountains. It means that on the weekends and on school holidays we can visit friends and family quite easily.

 

00:02:25

I love school and I’m going to be a teacher, just like my father. He often tells us wonderful storiesabout his students who grow up and live very interesting lives. One girl he taught is now a young mayor in our town!

 

00:02:40

My mother’s job is very interesting too, she is a midwife, so she looks after pregnant women, helping them before, during, and after they give birth.

 

00:02:51

As a midwife, my mother meets many women and girls in our community. She shares some of the stories with me so that I too can learn from them.

 

00:03:00

Some stories are very sad as they are about girls my own age or younger who have been pushed into marriage.  It means they have to leave school early and have babies soon afterwards. Girls my age can have a lot of difficulty being pregnant and giving birth… and sometimes they lose their life. This is so sad.

 

00:03:26

My mother was so sad to witness this situation recently. She told me about  a girl who was my age from a village closeby, who was forced to marry an older man. The girl did not know who to go to and who to speak to when she got pregnant. She faced many complications and sadly she died.

 

00:03:48

Her death could have been prevented especially if she was older when she gave birth.

 

00:03:54

I signed up this year for a girl’s empowerment club in our town.

It’s wonderful. We learn about sexual reproductive health and even negotiation skills.  I have learnt that as a girl, I count in my community! I also really want to be able to help girls my age so that they can live their life to their fullest.

 

00:04:16

Girls are just too young to get married and to become mothers.

 

00:04:20

We can lose our dreams of becoming somebody important one day; of having a job and helping our families and communities.

 

00:04:29
I am so inspired by my mother’s work and I hope that I too can help girls so that we can build a better future for everyone.

 

00:04:38

‘Hold on a Minute, a podcast series by UNFPA - Asia and Pacific

 

HOST Introducing speakers

 

00:04:43

HOST

It is clear from Maya’s story, that it takes more than policies to create a positive change, in such a deep-rooted harmful norm. To learn more about how the UNFPA and its partners are working to empower young women, I am excited to have our two guest speakers.

 

00:05:00

HOST

Upala Devi, is the Asia-Pacific Regional Gender Advisor and Human Rights Technical Advisor at UNFPA, based in Bangkok. With 22 years in the development field, she has worked with most of the top organizations from UNDP to UNICEF, UN WOMEN, ILO and Save the Children Fund in the UK and Sweden.

 

00:05:24

HOST

Upala has contributed extensively to various books, journals and policy papers on gender, gender-based violence, child rights, human rights, and development. She has often spoken on issues of rights & development including at the US Department of State, the US Senate, and Harvard's John F Kennedy School.

 

00:05:48

HOST

Indira Pancholi is a feminist-human rights activist and founder of ‘Mahila Jan Adhikar Samiti’, a women-led organization based in central Rajasthan, India. Over the past 25 years she has worked closely with rural and urban women, children, and adolescents.  

 

00:06:11

HOST

Her work ranges from grassroots actions to training female leaders in local self-governments. She specializes in promoting gender justice, social development, and addressing violence against women.  India has also published extensively on sexual reproductive health and rights.

 

00:06:30

HOST

Hello Upala and Indira, thank you so much for being with us on our podcast!

 

HOST - INTERVIEW – EXPERT TALK

 

00:06:36

HOST

Upala, Indira, thank you so much for being with us here on our podcast today. Because the issue of child marriage has always been a very serious and a very big concern for people throughout the whole world. But, you know, nowadays, perhaps, maybe people need to understand it more and how it has evolved over the years.

 

00:06:59

HOST

Upala, we've recently just heard the story of Maya in our podcast, who's really smart and a very motivated young woman who wants to try to help other girls from early marriage and pregnancy. When we take a look a child marriage what reasons might young girls be pushed into child marriage or earlier forced unions by their families?

 

00:07:24

UPALA

Thank you for asking the question. And, you know, we have these reasons which have been there for the last many, many decades. And these reasons are primarily poverty, harmful gender and social norms that places of low value on girls as well as at the end of the day. In some countries, for example, Southeast Asia, for example, in Cambodia and Laos, we've also found that adolescent pregnancies actually lead to early unions as well, where a girl is forced to live with her partner because she is pregnant.

 

00:08:02

UPALA

That normally is not the case in South Asia where the girls get pregnant after getting married. So there are different factors and reasons, including poverty, social and gender norms, which are very, very harmful. This community towards women and girls as well as, you know, adolescent pregnancies. However, in recent years, there are some other factors that are contributing to child marriage, child early and forced marriages.

 

00:08:25

UPALA

And as we know right now, the world has been really rocked by a series of shocks and stresses. The most and least as such, first is the most severe pandemic that we've seen this century, COVID 19. And after the effects of COVID 19, we are having two major wars playing out right now, which will also have an impact in terms of economics and migration.

 

00:08:47

UPALA

We are having the worst global energy crisis since the 1970s, the fastest global inflation in the 21st century, which is leading to spiraling inflation and food insecurity. We have a record global debt burden and we have increasingly visible impacts of climate change. And I would not even call it climate change anymore. I would actually say it's a climate crisis.

 

00:09:13

UPALA

All of this will lead to, unfortunately, an even higher incidences of child marriage, not just in countries of South Asia, Southeast Asia and Africa, but we’ll be actually seeing many other countries joining, as well, in a very bad way because all of the factors that I'm listing right now.

 

00:09:36

HOST

It's quite, you could say, I don't want to say depressing, but it's kind of saddening,  isn't it, that we have seen this problem evolve into such an issue with all of these different pressures, as you mentioned, over the recent years. Indira, you've worked with communities. What are some of the problems that child brides encounter after their marriages so early in life?

 

00:10:02

HOST

And do girls, young women and other women have a lot of knowledge about sexual and reproductive health?

 

00:10:07

INDIRA

Thank you for this opportunity to talk about our experiences on this important issue. But what Upala is saying is a larger picture and we come at the local level. As we know, child marriage is a patriarchal way of controlling girls at a very young age.

 

00:10:22

INDIRA

As a feminist, we understand it in feminist discourse. This control is not only about their physical labor, but also women's sexuality and reproduction from a very early age. Child marriage is a way of snatching away their freedom of expression and independent thinking throughout strict social norms. From the childhood, young girls are taught to remain silent accept whatever elderly people order them and accept the gendered division within their families.

 

00:10:56

INDIRA

This society requires the female to completely surrender her being to her family and community. You know, and this is done right from a girl's childhood. It's remaining ‘til now. After the long way to development, we go to child marriage deeply impacts girls overall development and well-being. Due to the practice of child marriage, girls aged 14, 15 or 16 or whatever, are forced to remain under the veil.

 

00:11:26

INDIRA

They remain invisible to the community for some years and are deprived of education and other basic needs. If they raise their voices, even for a small relief, they face violence. Many girls face many forms of violence throughout life. Their sexual experiences are painful and undignified. They face pressure to get pregnant and bear a child immediately after marriage within some months.

 

00:11:53

INDIRA

If they fail in this, within a year’s time, they face stigmaand the families start talking about bringing another wife and abandoning the first one. Obviously, they lack of any understanding of their bodies, their sexual and reproductive health. If any girl talks about these issues, they are considered to be a bad character or bad girl. Even senior women do not know much about the issue.

 

00:12:19

HOST

Wow, and, you know, it's definitely an issue that I personally, as an outsider, am kind of surprised that it hasn't really changed, Indira. Have you seen a bit of a change in terms of how people have access to sexual and reproductive health education?

 

00:12:37

INDIRA

Yeah. So I can tell there is no formal system to learn these girls about sexuality. We don't have a formal system to educate girls about the sexual and reproductive system. We don't have sexual education in our formal education system.

 

00:12:59

INDIRA

There is a long struggle within the women's movement to add into the formal education system this reproductive and sexual health issues.

 

00:13:10

HOST

And, you know, moving from the case studies that you've just mentioned in terms of the communities that you've been involved in, Indira, to Upala, you have recently been on a field visit, including Nepal. Did you meet some child brides? And if so, what did you learn from your conversations from them?

 

00:13:29

UPALA

I actually yes, I was on a field visit, true. But I actually did not meet. I did not have an opportunity to meet with the child brides herself, but I met potential child brides,  girls between the ages of 14 and 17 who are at risk of getting married off by their parents. So I visited schools that are run by UNFPA and UNICEF  in very, very rural interior areas in Nepal.

 

00:13:56

UPALA

And really this group is a very vulnerable, marginalized group of people because they are religious minorities in a Hindu country. Nepal is a Hindu country. But these are Muslim minorities living in Nepal and are very poor. So in a way, they are doubly marginalized. Firstly because of their poverty status, as well as the fact that they are also a religious minority and hence they have less access to policies and programmes that are there, for access, in terms of the government access.

 

00:14:30

UPALA

So what's happening is that I went on many of these visits over a period of three days, the schools, community centers meeting with community custodians of culture, for example, police people, religious leaders, Hindu religious leaders, Muslim religious leaders and the girls themselves.

 

00:14:51

UPALA

And what I learned is that never say never. The courage and the resilience that they exhibit daily in their lives, telling the parents that I'm not going to get married, telling the parents that I'm going to go to school every day, availing of all the different empowerment programmes that UNFPA and UNICEF have rolled out for them.

 

00:15:15                                                      

UPALA

And then engaging in being self-advocates in their communities, to say no against child marriage has really, really, really made me feel that, yes, what we do maybe a tiny drop in the ocean, but when you actually see the work on the ground and the impact it's had on the lives of girls and the communities at large, I think the lessons that I've learned are: courage, resilience, the power of innovations and the ability to empower even the most poorest, vulnerable, marginalized is actually possible.

 

00:15:54

HOST

Thank you so much, Upala, because now I can kind of sense the feeling of each girl. And it does take a lot to give that confidence to that individual girl who's not even a woman yet, you know, to stand up, not only to her family or her parents, but her society, too, to say that she does have her own rights and, you know, she deserves better.

 

00:16:19

HOST

Indira, with your work in Rajasthan, India, can you share us a bit about an example of your organization's work and maybe talk about how you've been working to tackle child marriage there?

 

00:16:30

INDIRA

Well, what Upala said, engaging them - self advocating is a very important strategy, I think. We are working, the most effective strategy that we have used, is to build the rights perspective based on constitutional rights and human rights framework of the girls themselves, to align with their experiences and enhanced capacities and build their skills around the social issues they face.

 

00:16:58

INDIRA

We focus on building their skills of social analysis, communication, negotiation and how to get information to combat obstacles they are facing in life, engaging them, self-educating. So peer support, network, and monitoring is the center of our efforts, mentoring.

 

00:17:20

INDIRA

Being a support network and mentoring is the center of our efforts. What the challenge faced is that the formal regular education system does not offer scientific, correct information and knowledge on reproductive and sexual health, in adolescent age. The system also strengthens social control over the lives of adolescents. The big problem is the system is also working on this line, especially for girl’s lives.

 

00:17:49

INDIRA

Only source of information, we as girls and women get to strengthen ourselves is by listening and sharing information and knowledge from each other. Add on new knowledge, scientific knowledge, mainly in remote areas where no digital devices are allowed [be] used by girls. And Internet connectivity is very poor.

 

00:18:12

HOST

Indira, you know, I'm sure you face challenges, you know, especially, as you said, going into those remote areas. How do you, you know, you face these challenges. Tell us a little bit about them and what is the key to, you know, getting to these girls and giving them the right information?

 

00:18:33

INDIRA

Due to that Covid experience, we have learned that when schools are closed, there is no space for girls. There is no private space. There is no mental space for girls in the home. So we established many Sakhi centers in their villages at the cluster level and adolescent young girls managed, self-manage these centers.

 

00:18:58

INDIRA

 So they manage these centers. We train them with all the information, knowledge and skills to transform information to each other. So after these trainings, girls are very much capable to take help from the health workers, from the villagers or mentors from the organization. So they are able to get information from many places.

 

00:19:29

INDIRA

And we are established in these Sakhi centers. We provide them digital devices as a common resource and internet connection and as a common resource. So because of in the villages that is, they don't have their own mobile phones and any other digital devices. There is a stigma around it, and there is a penalty if girls have taken any device in their hands.

 

00:19:55

INDIRA

So we think the common resources creation of common resources is a good strategy and accepted by elderly people also. And we sometimes we call them and we organize some kind of dissemination to the elderly people how to get information and how to get information about many things, about job opportunities, about education, about the health.

 

00:20:23

INDIRA

So people also agreed and right now, yeah, there are some good examples to acceptance of these uses of devices and uses of …

 

00:20:36

HOST

I have so many questions. Upala, I just want to take the time to ask Indira a bit about this because of the fact that I can't imagine, like why was it such a sensitive issue for a girl to have a device? What is the stigma against it? Can you tell us a little bit about that, Indira?

 

00:20:57

INDIRA

Well, there is a fear that girls will run away from home. Digital devices give some other kind of liberty to girls. You know? There is a digital device, give them space for themselves, whatever they want to watch, what they want to learn in their own time. So digital devices is a good resource for girls.

 

00:21:24

HOST

So have you ever faced, like, I'm sure, like backlash from the community, Indira?

 

00:21:31

INDIRA

Yeah. We are working with the community So we are taking a strategy close to families and we are engaging with the families, not to community first, and when the family members, when convinced with this strategy, then slowly we are going in the community.

 

00:21:52

HOST

I get it. So a more intimate, a more closer relationship from the family unit within first and then going outwards.

 

00:22:04

INDIRA

And so what we learn during the family engagement: families, family members, father and mother are also not capable to face community pressure. So, if you engage with the family, you can empower them also through the information, through the knowledge.  So families can face the community questions, community obstacles.

 

00:22:32

HOST

Very interesting. Now, Upala, child marriage is described as a harmful practice. What is the UNFPA’s regional response to address it?

 

00:22:44

UPALA

Well, I would actually list a couple of intervention areas that we are engaged in. And these interventions, though they are designed at the regional level, they are actually implemented at the local level in terms of country level implementation, because, you know, the incidences of child marriage, are in the countries.

 

00:23:04

UPALA

So while we design these interventions, we implement these interventions in collaboration with multi stakeholders at the country level and the six major intervention areas that we focus on, and I am going to list them one by one.

 

00:23:18

UPALA

The first is looking at income and economic strengthening. For example, you know, cash transfers, food transfers, vocational training, finding favorable job markets, for young girls who have just graduated from high school, who may have had the fortune to graduate from high school to begin with. So that's number one, income and economic strengthening.

 

00:23:41

UPALA

The second is education and life skills delivered through schools and our afterschool programmes like school adjacent programmes. And here again, cash and in-kind transfers for schooling is something that we always do to incentivize girls to stay in school.

 

00:23:54

UPALA

And then we also have targeted and tailored life skills, for example, comprehensive sexuality education, life skills education, girls empowerment programmes like Rupantaran programme in Nepal, which has shown a lot of impact in terms of raising employment levels of young girls and actually helping keep them in schools and not getting them married off by their parents.

 

00:24:17

UPALA

The third intervention area is related to focus and access to sexual reproductive health and rights. And here again I list comprehensive sexuality education, targeted at adolescent girls and boys as a very major intervention area. And then adolescent responsive SRH services, which means sexual reproductive health services, which are very, very tailored to adolescents and young people.

 

00:24:43

UPALA

For example, I have seen in India, in Nepal, in Bangladesh, that the primary, we try and ensure that primary health care centers are situated near schools, which means that young people can access the primary health care centers to access comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services.

 

00:25:05

UPALA

The fourth intervention area that we focus on is really, really looking at gender and social norms change, because, at the end, a lot of all these harmful practices, whether we're looking at child early-and-forced unions, whether we're looking at female genital mutilation cutting, whether we're looking at, you know, son reference to daughter discrimination that manifests, for example, in gender bias, sex selection, where the fetus is aborted because it's a girl fetus.

 

00:26:36

UPALA

You know, all these harmful practices really are rooted in gender inequality and manifested through harmful gender and social norms. So for us, the work that we do on gender and social norms change is very, very critical when we're looking at an intervention area for addressing and ending child marriage.

 

00:25:57

UPALA

And there are so many different gender and change norm approaches that we take from community sensitizations and awareness, to using the media, to having community based meetings, to value based dialogues, to policy level advocacy, to make sure that policies and laws that are being put in place are gender sensitive.

 

00:26:18

UPALA

Number five intervention area that we look at is system strengthening, through multisectoral multilevel approaches, which is basically systems strengthening in terms of development capacities of workforce across sectors and by workforce across sectors, I'm talking about teachers, community leaders, primary healthcare service providers, doctors, midwives, nurses and so on and so forth.

 

00:26:50

UPALA

And the final intervention area is really related to girl-focused, community-based interventions. For example, again, life skills education, comprehensive sexuality education. Looking at digital platforms, I mean, India did mention some of the adverse effects of digital platforms, but we are looking at positive impacts of digital platforms as well. And how through digital platform interventions, a girl actually becomes aware of her rights as well.

 

00:27:13

UPALA

So these are the six different intervention areas that I’m listing: income and economic strengthening; education and life skills; access to SRH services, gender and social norm change, system strengthening via multisectoral, multilevel approaches and girl-focused community interventions.

 

00:27:30

HOST

So a wide range of channels that we're looking at and indeed, it does kind of address the issue of what we've been talking about, this whole conversation where it's not you can't just pinpointed right, Upala, with just one aspect of the community, but you have to think about it as a whole.

 

00:27:52

UPALA

Absolutely. As I said, these are multi-layered, multilevel, multisectoral approaches. It involves top down and bottom up approaches where top down involves working with policymakers, community custodians of culture, with the health sector and so on and so forth. And the bottom up approach really means delving deep into norms, delving deep into community structures, delving deep into people's lives within families to bring about change.

 

00:28:21

UPALA

So it's also not just a multi-year approach. It is an approach that can take decades to change because it's a practice that has been there for decades to begin with.

 

00:28:34

HOST

And there's so much complexity to what you just mentioned in our conversation, that you've had, you know, evolving pressures from the outside. And at the same time, it's a very significant what you just mentioned there, Upala, and it ties kind of in with what Indira has been doing and that is, you know, looking at a different aspect where you go into the family unit versus going through the society as a whole.

 

00:28:58

HOST

Going to you, Indira, in your experience, we've heard that there have been many changes in our society over the years. So what is there need - If there is - if you've seen it, you know, that there is a different approach, perhaps maybe that has to be taken nowadays that you've seen to overcome these challenges, that changes every day.

 

00:29:23

INDIRA

Though as I said, multisectoral approaches is very important and whatever challenges I mentioned earlier, these challenges can be met through having at a state level comprehensive policy and programmes we need for overall wellbeing and development for girls// socially, economically and politically, also, including health, education, livelihoods support, opportunities, entertainment, transportation, etc.

 

00:29:52

INDIRA

But there is a need to increase opportunities for girls and boys as well. It is important that civil society and government should work together for the good cause of ending  child marriage discrimination and violence against women and girls towards equality.

 

00:30:10

INDIRA

Thirdly, more respect should be created for the voices of girls, and their role should be expanded at all levels of policymaking, governance and its programmeme implementation

 

00:30:23

HOST

From listening to both of you, I can definitely tell that you have worked so hard in this field. And sadly, often I have to say from the outside looking in, people who are not working in this field might think, it is one of these problems that will always be there, but let's talk about it. You know, let's talk about how it really can be changed.

 

00:30:47

HOST

Upala, what solutions are needed to ensure real impact in the reproductive health and rights of women and girls to be fulfilled in the region?

 

00:30:56

UPALA

I mean, when you talk about solutions, there are so many solutions and it requires such concerted effort because the opposition to gender equality and rights, you know, bodily autonomy and agency of adolescent girls includes a vast plethora of solutions from the legislative and policy level to systems and services that I talked about, as well as to how then these solutions can lay down to the community and family level, because we also know that pushback really really takes so many different forms and starts with opposition to language relating to sex, gender and human rights to begin with.

 

00:31:36

UPALA

So then you're looking at solutions. The solutions are also multilayered and multisectoral and involve a plethora of different, different activities based on solutions, based on, you know, the grand context that we're working in.

 

00:31:52

UPALA

But definitely it starts with political will, because political will then translates to development of laws and policies that can be gender sensitive, as opposed to laws and policies, that act to the detriment of girls.

 

00:32:12

UPALA

And here, for example, I cite the case of Afghanistan, where there is a huge prevalence right now of early child and forced marriages because of the situation in the country. Where girls are getting married off at the ages of eight or nine or ten, but we are not being able to do anything because there is no political will to begin with, where we have a very difficult government in the country that will not allow women, even girls to go to school, or women to work in offices.

 

00:32:42

UPALA

So really, the political will is the most important aspect in terms of having a solution and the political will that also percolates down to having not just enabling laws and policies, but also then involves resources to implement those laws and policies, for example, setting up schools, setting up primary health centers. You know, access to quality SRH services and so on and so forth requires political will as well as resources.  So that's number one.

 

00:33:11

UPALA

The other solution, it's not a solution, but these are pathways to access services and rights. And the other pathway would be awareness of what services exist at the community level, committees being made aware of what services exist, how to access those services and ensure that the services are not just of quality, but also are local community specific. What may work in Nepal, for example, may not even work in Sri Lanka or the Maldives when it comes to the kind of services that you're providing.

 

00:33:51

UPALA

And finally, I cannot stress enough the fact that the most important solution, which is really the problem, is that we have to change the prevailing harmful and discriminatory gender and social norms.

 

00:31:00:23

UPALA

That's an ongoing process, because if we cannot change norms, traditions, mindsets, attitudes and behaviors, whatever you try to do, even if you have the most enabling laws and policies in place, even if you have the best services in place, without having the right mindset, attitudes and knowledge which can then transform these discriminatory gender and social norms, it's impossible to bring about change

 

00:34:28

UPALA

Which also means, percolates to the fact that you will not be able to make women and girls access services. So, the solutions are very much to link the problems as well.

 

00:34:42

HOST

Upala, Indira, before we end our conversation, I really would like to give the opportunity to the both of you to kind of give a kind of like a takeaway, a last word on this issue for our listeners, because I'm sure a lot of people who are listening are worried, are concerned about this issue, but perhaps maybe may not know what they can do or what they can say about what part they can play in helping alleviate this chronic issue that we have around the world. Upala, would you like to start? Indira, can you give some last words?

 

00:35:23

INDIRA

Yeah. Thank you. I think in this current situation, political, social, economic situation in the world, in the country, I think we need to create a strong movement in the leadership of young girls with raising their voices and their role expanded, and the women's movement is very important. And as a citizen, the young girl's role is very important to change the political scenario. The young movement is very important in the country.

 

00:36:03

UPALA

For me, yes, I agree that, you know, building the agency of girls to say no is very, very important. And we will continue doing that work at the community level in these different countries where there's a high prevalence of child marriage. But along with that, we also have to really take into cognizance step that under megatrends that we're witnessing, for example, the wars, the climate crisis, that will have an impact unfortunately on higher prevalences of different forms of the harmful practices, including child marriage.

 

00:36:35

UPALA

So the key take-away would be to design interventions and programmes which take into account all the different megatrends that the world is currently witnessing, including climate change and humanitarian crisis and economic crisis.

 

00:36:52

HOST

Thank you so much, Upala and Indira, for giving us your insights on the situation and we look forward to seeing more work from you and seeing more change in the situation that needs to change for us to grow as a community as a world together.

 

HOST Conclusion

This has been the latest episode of “Hold on a Minute!” by UNFPA Asia-Pacific, Every Girl Counts.  From our conversation it is evident that girls, once armed with the right awareness, knowledge, and skills, have the capability to be the building lights and beacons of change in their communities.  All they need is the right support that they deserve.

 

For more insightful episodes of “Hold on a Minute!” by UNFPA Asia-Pacific, follow our podcast pages on Spotify, Facebook, YouTube, and Apple Podcast.  Just search for UNFPA “Hold on a minute”. See you in our next episode!