Standing Up for Girls: Girls from Arab States Share the Stories of Their Lives

Publication Date: 15/12/2018

Protecting girls and supporting fulfilment of their rights and potential lies at the heart of the mandate of the United Nations Population Fund’s Arab States Regional Office (UNFPA-ASRO) and CARE’s regional office for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Both UNFPA and CARE regional offices have embarked on this report with the aim of identifying, documenting and disseminating the impact of programmes that have targeted adolescent girls and that have successfully resulted in delaying child marriage, preventing teenage pregnancies and combating FGM in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), Iraq, and Sudan. More specifically, the report zooms in on the daily lives of girls that have been positively impacted by approaches and practices in reducing GBV and in improving their access to SRH awareness and the accompanying services they need. The report captures the stories told by girls themselves, by their mothers, by community leaders and by aid workers on the risks and unmet needs in refugee and host communities and on how holistic, inclusive and evidence-based programming has mitigated the risks and met these needs. [52 pages]