ICRW Helps Launch U.S. Strategy for Adolescent Girls

Washington, D.C. (March 15, 2016) – The International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) today welcomed the launch of the long-awaited U.S. Strategy for Adolescent Girls launched by Secretary of State John Kerry in Washington, D.C. ICRW, in conjunction with Girls Not Brides USA, has been leading a coalition of civil society organizations that has been urging the Obama Administration to create such a strategy, and contributed to the content of the strategy.

The United States is the first country to pen a strategy solely focused on the protection and advancement of adolescent girls. 

The strategy contains five major objectives: enhance girls’ access to quality education and safe environments; provide economic opportunities and incentives for girls and their families; empower girls with services, skills, information and support; mobilize and educate families and communities to end harmful practices, like female genital mutilation/cutting; and strengthen policy and legal frameworks and accountability.

“Now, the United States truly leads the world in recognizing that adolescent girls face the unique challenge of a double burden as both youth and females, yet are uniquely positioned to increase socioeconomic development outcomes,” said ICRW’s Senior Policy Manager Lyric Thompson. “After all, research tells us that when given the opportunity to stay in school, access health information and services and learn to assert their rights to live free of violence and discrimination, entire communities – and indeed countries –benefit socially and economically.”

The five objectives of the Strategy are based on key approaches that emerged from a systematic review of the evidence to end child, early and forced marriage, uncovered and documented by the International Center for Research on Women.