https://www.unv.org/Success-stories/are-you-listening-every-girl-counts
There are 290 million child brides in South Asia — the highest in the world, accounting for 45 percent of the global data.
Since 2016, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) have implemented a Global Programme to End Child Marriage in 12 of the highest prevalence countries — including Bangladesh, India, and Nepal.
Online Volunteers part of #EveryGirlCounts reached over a hundred thousand social media users within two weeks — the awareness campaign centered on gender equality, the rights of adolescent girls, equal right to education for all, and access to sexual and reproductive health services.
UN Volunteers and Online Volunteers collaborate on #EveryGirlCounts
Kefan Yang is an international UN Volunteer Specialist from China and serves with the UNFPA Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific since 2022. As the Specialist on gender-biased sex selection and other harmful practices, Kefan together with his peer UN Volunteer, Analyst Anni Annirrahmah, UNV Online Volunteering Analyst, provided digital literacy and social media content production training to Online Volunteers.
Kefan and Anni regularly monitored the communication channels to ensure an easy and efficient content creation process. "As a UN Volunteer, it is fascinating to team-up with Online Volunteers to create social media content and raise awareness on ending child marriage. It's also important to treat daughters equally and stop son preference, a gender discriminatory practice. Online Volunteering is an innovative approach to combating harmful social and gender norms in digital spaces," adds Kefan.
Meet the changemakers
Dimpi Lama is an Online Volunteers in Nepal, a country that has the third-highest prevalence of child marriage, with 41 percent of women aged 20 to 24 married before they turn 18.
During the campaign, Dimpi disseminated messages about harmful gender and social norms contributing to child marriage in Nepal. She reached more than nine thousand people on social media, including youth and adults. Bound by her motivation to volunteer — a commitment to self and humanity rooted in compassion, she says, "Being part of the journey of changemakers working towards creating an equal world has been immensely gratifying. I want to see a world where girls like me enjoy their full rights and get equal opportunities as their male colleagues."
There are 38 million child brides in Bangladesh, 13.4 million of whom were married before their 15th birthday.
Mehedi Hasan, Debanjan Gobinda Biswas and Iffat Rubaiyat are Online Volunteers who amplified the harmful effects of child marriage to create impact far and wide. They did so by circulating messages on discrimination against women and girls.
For Mehedi, it was an inspiring and fulfilling experience, he says. “I am most proud of my role in raising awareness for International Girl Child Day through this volunteering project. The collaborative effort, formidable team dynamics, and a shared commitment to the cause helped us navigate challenges effectively, ensuring a smooth execution of our initiatives. I hope to see more initiatives like this in the future to create positive change on a global scale.”
Twenty-seven per cent of women aged 20-24 in India are still being forced into unions before they are adults. These numbers prompted Ananya Lahiri to take action.
Ananya did not want to stay silent when too many issues hinder women's progress in India. She shares, “This campaign was very effective in reminding the world of the issues that the girl child still faces in India — child marriage, female genital mutilation, lack of sexual and reproductive health services.”
Her previous volunteering experience and a strong passion for women's and girls' rights plus social media savviness made Ananya delve into digital content creation. She received positive feedback from social media users on how effective the campaign was to make people aware on girl's basic human rights. Ananya felt a deep sense of gratitude for helping to put the word out on rights that matter — women and girls’ rights.
Karthikeyan Radhika Chennaiyan could not continue seeing women and girls in his village in the State of Tamil Nadu being deprived of their fundamental rights. As an Online Volunteer, he used social media platforms to call out child marriage practices during the campaign.
For Karthikeyan, it was important to get involved in person as well. He visited elementary schools to raise awareness on child marriage, and women's and girls’ rights speaking to students and teachers.
In 2023, there were over 14,000 requests posted for Online Volunteers by UN partners, governments and the civil society worldwide.
UNFPA’s campaign such as #EveryGirlCounts show how Online Volunteering can be used to scale and engage Online Volunteers creatively in advocacy, data collection, and education. This is only the tip of the iceberg! We know that there are many more people out there interested in working towards the Sustainable Development Goals. We simply need to create more opportunities for them to do so.
To find out more about UNV's partnership with UNFPA, click here — To find out more about Online Volunteers, click here.
