Gender Policy Is Foreign Policy, Too

The empowerment of young women and girls is one of the hallmarks of a free and fair society. Unfortunately, they still frequently experience exclusion and inequity, especially in terms of agency and socioeconomic status. Around the world, gender equity significantly contributes to reducing conflict and extreme poverty. That’s why autocrats, extremist organizations, gangs, and other rogue actors attack women and girls to assert power and control. But too often, the global community delays action on or even disregards so-called women’s issues, including gender-based violence.

The International Day of the Girl Child on Oct. 11 provides an opportunity for the United States and the broader international community to recognize that economic growth and long-term security hinge on the status and well-being of women and girls. To actively promote their access to secondary education, youth-appropriate health care services, and seats at the decision-making table is both good policy and good business. Furthermore, taking action to support young women and girls isn’t just a moral imperative for the United States—it is in its own best interest.

Since the Taliban takeover last year, Afghanistan has once again become one of the worst countries in terms of female disempowerment. The Taliban regime is intent on the erasure of Afghan women and girls from public life, including banning girls age 12 and above from attending school, excluding most women from the workforce, and restricting freedom of movement for women and girls. But the problem is global: Young women and girls everywhere are paying the price for democratic backsliding and instability, with limited international action. But governments, businesses, international institutions, and philanthropic organizations all have a role to play to reverse this trend.

Advancing the status of young women and girls starts with education: Each year of school that female students complete—especially at the secondary level—reduces early and forced marriage, the risk of HIV infection, and infant and maternal mortality. Recent research shows that children born to mothers with at least 12 years of education are 31 percent less likely to die before the age of 5 than those born to mothers with no education. Equal access to learning also reduces vulnerability to natural disasters and conflict. Moreover, not educating girls translates to trillions of dollars in lost productivity and earnings. (The Taliban’s ban on access to secondary education for female students has cost the Afghan economy more than $500 million, according to UNICEF estimates.)

Education initiatives, and particularly those focused on completing secondary school, require more funding from both public and private institutions—and not just for classroom-specific needs. Young women and girls also need access to clean water and sanitation facilities, menstrual hygiene products, and mental health support. Global businesses have a lot to contribute in these areas. For example, the U.S. multinational Procter & Gamble created the Children’s Safe Drinking Water Program, providing low-income communities worldwide with fast-acting chemicals to purify their drinking water. This keeps women and girls from walking long distances each day to collect safe water, freeing up their time for school. While this program was charitable, it was also good business, strengthening the global economy in the long term.

Policymakers must also demonstrate greater consideration of the well-being of young women and girls, particularly in the context of peace and security. The global community should back its verbal support for gender equity with decisive action, including increasing resource support for advocacy and holding perpetrators of human rights abuses to account. Taking decisive action now is critical, particularly given the proliferation of bad actors and democratic backsliding around the world. The empowerment of young women and girls is a direct challenge to autocracy, poverty, and terrorism. It is essential that policymakers see the advancement of women and girls within all societies as a central pillar of foreign policy.

The list goes on and on. In Central America, gender-based violence is a daily threat fueled by long-standing impunity that causes physical, economic, and emotional damage and also accelerates emigration. Unsurprisingly, many of the countries with the highest rates of adolescent pregnancy in sub-Saharan Africa are designated as “not free” in Freedom House’s annual Freedom in the World index, which ranks countries based on political rights and civil liberties. Young women in Iran face violence from the regime’s morality police and are now standing up in defiance of decades of state-imposed inequity and abuse.

Nearly half of young people today live in low-income countries. The young women and girls there have the potential to accelerate progress for all, protect human dignity, and demand accountability from governments and private sector institutions. Now more than ever, they need sustained support from the international community to achieve this potential and contribute to advancing a more secure and stable future for all.