Poverty is sexist – girls from poorer countries have less prospects – words Al Woods

Girls’ expectations of what they want to be as adults has dramatically improved in the west over the last few decades. Gone are the days when girls were expected to grow up to be a housewife or a maid.

Ask kids nowadays what they want to be when they grow up and you will get a vast array of answers. Scientist, entrepeneur, blogger. Of course, there will still be a few princess answers and some will still see marriage as their main future. But things have changed and they are changing still.

But amongst the world’s poorest families and communities very little has changed. A new film produced by one.org shows us some typical British looking kids but they are repeating the words spoken by real life kids from poorer areas of the world and their answers are quite shocking.

Not only do they see mainly marriage as their future they also see their future husband as their master. They expect to be beaten if they misbehave as wives and some of them expect to be married by the age of ten. Some even see themselves growing up as a servant or slave and sold to the highest bidder.

“No girl wants a future where she’s denied an education, infected with HIV, or married off as a child, but this is the reality for too many girls living in extreme poverty,” said Roxane Philson, Chief Marketing Officer at ONE. “Until these barriers are broken, millions of girls in the world’s poorest countries are being denied the right to build the future they choose. This cannot go on – sexism is unacceptable – poverty can make it a death sentence.”

The film shakes you out of complacancy or any notion that the world outside our western bubble has improved.  It puts forward the nidea that poverty is sexist. It wants to shine a light onto this massive gender inequality in the world’s poorest countries.

You can sign the petition here

You can find out more about the campaign and the ideas behind the video at one.org