Adolescent girls in India are a large invisible population, amounting to 113 million, or 20% of the world’s adolescent girls, and are trapped in a society with socio-cultural practices and contrasting stages of development that leaves them powerless to make essential life-choices. Addressing the challenges facing the adolescent girl in India requires mobilizing the key influencers and influences in her life – at home, in school and at work – that can help realize her potential including self, peers, families, communities and institutions.

1. Overview on Adolescent Girl Empowerment
Dec 2013

2. Overview
Adolescent girls in India are a large invisible population, amounting to 113
million, or 20% of the world’s adolescent girls, and are trapped in a society
with socio-cultural practices and contrasting stages of development that
leaves them powerless to make essential life-choices. Research indicates that
adolescent girls are particularly vulnerable in Bihar, Rajasthan and Uttar
Pradesh, where over half of all adolescent girls are married before the age of
18, up to 95% of drop out of schools and over 50% face domestic violence.
These girls have to face the following issues:
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Many girls do not go to school
Get married at an early age, followed by early pregnancy
These girls are also prone to domestic violence
Many of these disempowered girls are also at a huge risk of being
trafficked
Solutions to tackle this issue:
Engaging Youth: Working with young people is essential to make them aware
of their choices in these matters and give them the appropriate information
and support they need to exercise these choices.
Mobilizing Communities: This process includes the involvement of staff and
peer educators and home visits to help parents practice good parenting,
establish bonds with adolescents and address risk factors within the home.
Training Public Workers (Teachers and Public Healthcare Workers): Non
profits have also realized the potential of building the capacities of different
public service providers to ensure that they are sensitized towards the needs
of adolescents and empowered to respond to these needs through their
routine work.
“Every year of additional schooling for an adolescent girl means a 15% to 25%
increase in her earning potential.” Source: The Girl Effect, Fact Sheet: India,
accessed on: www.thegirleffect.org

3. Child Marriage
Child marriage is a human rights abuse with multiple consequences. For a
girl, child marriage can mean the end of her education, grave health risks to
her and her children, limited chances of financial independence,
and ultimately a cycle of poverty and disempowerment.
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At 40%, India accounts for the highest share of the world’s 60 million
child marriages
61% of women in India aged 25-49 were married before the age of 18
The median age at marriage among women ages 25-49 has barely risen,
from 16.1 years in the early 1990s to 16.8 years by the mid-2000s
Children of young mothers are 50% more likely to die than those born to
mothers aged 20-29
Solutions to tackle this issue:
Creating alternative life
options for girls: It is crucial to
raise the visibility of socially
valued roles for women
beyond that of a wife and
mother. Offering education,
employability and exposure
to life skills, health information, and support networks will enhance the
potential of girls and existing child brides.
Identifying and sensitizing gatekeepers: It is important to identify and
influence these gatekeepers, such as the girl’s father, brother, grandmother,
in-laws or village leaders, to protect the girl child from the adversities of
child marriage.
Promoting birth and marriage registration: Mandating marriage registration
ensures a girl’s entitlement rights, in case of separation or domestic
violence.

4. Domestic Violence
Violence against women is a widespread phenomenon around the world,
and is particularly prevalent in South Asia, especially in India. Violence
against women is rooted in a gender framework that refers to widely held
expectations about appropriate male and female behavior, roles and
characteristics. It is not only a violation of human rights, but also negatively
impacts intergenerational health and multiplies economic burdens.
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Domestic violence accounts for 50% of all reported crimes against
women in India
2 out of 5 women in abusive relationships stay silent about their suffering
Domestic violence
Nearly 75% of Indian women who report domestic violence have
attempted suicide
54% women and 51% men agree that domestic violence is acceptable
Solutions to tackle this issue:
Prevention and early intervention: Creating an enabling environment of
social and economic empowerment for women will help them immensely
better negotiate their right to a violence free home.
Power of the community: Informal networks such as family, friends, and
neighbors usually provide the first point of contact for abused women.
Nurturing such support groups will not only strengthen support services for a
victim, but also deter abusers.
Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005: Ensuring that this
progressive, victim-oriented civil legislation actually facilitates a victim’s
access to justice and support services requires increased political
commitment and budgetary outlays; greater convergence between medical,
legal and social systems; capacity building and training of these agencies; and
mechanisms to ensure their accountability.
Building knowledge and evidence: Building knowledge and collective
evidence in the field on prevalence and patterns of domestic violence, and
effective and scalable programmatic approaches.

5. Sex Trafficking
Trafficking is a crime against humanity - It can impede efforts to improve
health, increase economic growth, achieve gender equality and can pose a
threat to lifetime prospects of adolescent girls. This crime can however be
combated through the effective functioning of the 4P framework:
Prevention, Protection, Prosecution and Partnerships.
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3 million women (2.48%) are engaged in commercial sex activity (CSA) in
India, a 50% rise from 1997
Over 60% of those trafficked into sex work are adolescent girls in the age
group of 12-16 years
India has 3 lakh brothels in 1100 identified red-light areas, housing nearly
5 million children in addition to commercial sex workers (Burman 2008)
More than 25% of women in CSA in India are situated in Maharashtra
(14.20%) and West Bengal (13%)
Solutions to tackle this issue:
Identifying the Underlying Factors and Facts of Sex Trafficking:
Comprehensive data sets can facilitate an understanding of underlying
factors of trafficking, establish linkages, and provide insights to tackle this
macro problem.
Strengthening institutional capacity and engaging key responders:
Strengthening existing government infrastructure and sensitizing key
responders such as gram panchayats, police and judiciary, to the issue of
trafficking, will determine effective prevention and protection of the victim
and prosecution of perpetrators.
Focusing Anti-sex Trafficking Efforts on the Demand Side: Evidence suggests
that focusing anti-trafficking efforts on clients, traffickers and corrupt police
officials that abet trafficking will increase the risk and decrease the
profitability of the trafficking business.
Facilitating an Integrated and Holistic Human Rights Approach: It is critical to
adopt a rights-based approach to trafficking as it places the victim at the
center of all responses and ensures that the state remains accountable for
promoting and protecting the rights of existing and potential trafficked
persons.

6. Concluding Thoughts
Addressing the challenges facing the adolescent girl in India requires mobilizing
the key influencers and influences in her life – at home, in school and at work –
that can help realize her potential including self, peers, families, communities and
institutions. For more information on this topic, please drop in an email to
ipf@dasra.org
“Investing in an educated,
healthy, skilled and empowered
girl today means she will have
the tools to reinvest back into
her family, her community, and
our world.” Source: UNICEF,
State of the World’s Children,
2011

7. Thank You