The poignant voices of these and other girls at Friday's event, called “Girls
Speak Out” and moderated by CBS News anchor Katie Couric of the United States,
drew an emotional response from those attending, including delegates to the UN
Commission on the Status of Women, whose two-week session ends on 9 March.
Madeleine, a 15-year-old former soldier from the DRC, recounted her
experiences in the jungles of Eastern Congo, where she fought on the front lines
of the civil war. She joined the Mai-Mai armed group in 2002 when she was only
11 years old without having completed primary schooling. After receiving
military training, she spent two years with the group in the Uvira region before
being demobilized as a soldier in 2004.
“Girls who have been demobilized now live in local communities. And I must
say that 7 or 8 out of 10 of us have children – children that are being rejected
by our communities,” the former girl soldier told her fellow delegates. “Some of
us are suffering from diseases like HIV/AIDS, and yet we don't have access to
treatment. What have we done wrong to suffer like this? What will be our
future?” she asked, before she broke down in tears. The audience gave her a
standing ovation.
The event was organized as part of a debate on how to curb the discrimination
and violence that girls face in all regions, which is the priority theme of this
year's Commission session. Over 2,000 women and girls have come from around the
world to join government delegates in seeking solutions to these problems.
The impact of discrimination and violence against girls is staggering: 55
million girls are not in school; millions of school-aged girls work in domestic
service; an estimated 40 per cent of child soldiers are girls; and more than 60
per cent of young people aged 15-25 living with HIV and AIDS are female.
“We are not only the subject of the conference, but we are also the voice of
this conference,” said 16-year-old Jordana Alter Confino from New Jersey, who
was a co-moderator of the special event. Ms. Confino is one of the founders of
Girls Learn International, a service initiative engaging middle and high school
students from the United States in the campaign to achieve universal girls'
education.
Katie Couric, a mother of two girls, told delegates that there was so much to
learn from this discussion, observing: “To change the world, you have to learn
the world.”