World Bank calls for equal chances for women

Girls with little or no education are far more likely to be married as children, suffer domestic violence, live in poverty, and lack a say over household spending or their own health care than better-educated peers, according to a new report by the World Bank Group on Wednesday. Some 65 percent of women with primary education or less globally are married as children, lack control over household resources, and condone wife-beating, compared with 5 percent of women who finish high school, the bank's report "Voice and Agency: Empowering Women and Girls for Shared Prosperity finds" showed. Across 18 of the 20 countries with the highest prevalence of child marriage, girls with no education were up to six times more likely to marry than girls with high school education, the report said. Nearly one in five girls in developing countries, meanwhile, becomes pregnant before age 18, while pregnancy-related causes account for most deaths among girls aged between 15 and 19 in the developing world -- nearly 70,000 die each year. "The persistent constraints and deprivations that prevent many of the world' s women from achieving their potential have huge consequences for individuals, families, communities, and nations," World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said at the launch ceremony of the report. "If the world is going to end extreme poverty and ensure that prosperity is shared by all, we have to have the full and equal participation of women and men, girls and boys, around the world," Kim said. The report noted increasing school enrollment and achieving gender equality in enrollment are long-standing development goals. Women's land rights can be strengthened by progressive legal reforms and improved governance.