Who Cares About Girls? is a series that explores how the world treats girls. Hosted by award-winning journalist Lisa Ling and produced by National Geographic Television, the 2nd program in the series is titled Hiden Away: Slave Girls of India and aired on The Oxygen channel (who knew such a station existed) a few weeks back. Other installments will follow in 2007.
The United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, which this year is focusing on discrimination and violence against girls, has convened multiple panels to begin discussing issues ranging from rape, trafficking and prostitution to education, child labor and AIDS.
"The most important message is that governments should ensure that every working child gets a free education," said Sunita Tamang, lamenting that in her community in Nepal "people think that if you educate a girl child, it will only embarrass you."
Jordanian student Golfidan Khader Al Abassy described the discrimination against girls in families, schools and in the workplace in her country.
"I hope it will be in the near future that we will have the same opportunities as boys," she said. "The most important message which I want to send for all over the world ... (is) that the girls have a lot of power ... so if we give them the chance to prove themselves, they will be great persons. ... We have to believe in them."
