UN report: Girls who try to get an education face rising violence
High-profile attacks such as the abduction of 300 schoolgirls by Boko Haram in Nigeria and the shooting of Malala Yousafzai in Pakistan are a fraction of what is suffered by girls trying to get an education, the United Nations human rights office said on Monday.
Many of the attacks are done in the name of religion or culture, while others are gang-related, notably in El Salvador and other parts of Central America, Veronica Birga, chief of the women's human rights and gender section at the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said at a presentation to release the report.
Such violence is on the rise, the UN report said, citing acid attacks and poisoning by the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan, girls from a Christian school in India being abducted and raped in 2013 and Somali girls taken out of school and forced to marry al-Shabaab fighters in 2010.
