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International Day of the Girl is marked on 11 October annually. Unlike its sister day of observance, International Women’s Day, the significance of the date may pass many by.
It’s a relatively new observance, having been launched by the United Nations in 2012, with the intention of raising awareness that the gender inequality women experience throughout their lifetime begins at birth.
In recent years however, the occasion’s profile has sky rocketed as the women’s movements have pushed the world to shine a brighter spotlight on female activism, both contemporary and historic.
Pioneering action by young girls that has previously flown under the radar or been swept under history's carpet, is being unearthed and celebrated globally.
From finally passing on the story of Audrey Faye Hendricks, the youngest child known to be arrested for protesting during the Civil Rights Movement, to simply sharing the powerful 2018 March for Our Lives speech delivered by mass shooting survivor Emma Gonzalez, International Day of the Girl is the perfect time to reflect on the history-making girls around the globe.
Show all 11 1 /1111 inspiring activists who prove there's no age limit on changing the 11 inspiring activists who prove there's no age limit on changing the Amika George, period poverty activist UK campaigner Amika George has been fighting to end period poverty since the age of 17 when she started a petition that called on the government to provide free sanitary products to all schoolchildren. The petition garnered 200,000 signatures and led to a national #FreePeriods movement and in March 2019, the Conservative Party agreed to fund free menstruation products for the poorest students in secondary schools in England. In 2018 George was the recipient of a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Campaign award for her work. George is still campaigning to end period stigma by breaking down taboos and is fighting to expand free sanitary product access to all.
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11 inspiring activists who prove there's no age limit on changing the Margaret E Knight, inventor Margaret E Knight forged a career as the most successful female inventor of the 20th but her very first innovation came at the age of 12. After beginning work in a local mill in Manchester, New Hampshire, she witnessed an accident where a fellow mill-worker was stabbed by a steel-tipped shuttle from a mechanical loom. Knight promptly invented a safety device for the loom - although it was never patented so the exact details are unknown - that went on to be adopted other mills in the area, saving countless lives. Later, she would find fame as the inventor of the flat-bottomed brown paper bag.
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11 inspiring activists who prove there's no age limit on changing the Greta Thunberg, climate activist 16-year-old Greta Thunberg carries a huge burden - she’s reluctantly become the face of a last-ditch effort to raise climate change awareness before the period where global warming can be tackled passes. The Swedish schoolgirl has led a worldwide movement of the largest climate protests on record - mostly spearheaded by teenagers, she furiously admonished a roomful of United Nations leaders for "stealing her childhood”, and was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Thunberg shouldn’t have to save the world - but she’s doing it anyway.
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11 inspiring activists who prove there's no age limit on changing the Jazz Jenning, LGBTQ activist Jazz Jennings became one of the youngest trans individuals to be publicly identified, long before discourse around trans people was mainstream. In 2007, at 11, Jennings was interviewed by Barbara Walters about her experiences growing up trans. The interview introduced many people to a positive representation of trans indentities at a time when such a thing in mass media was few and far between. Since then, Jennings has become a prominent LGBTQ activist and has appeared in her own reality show depicitng her daily life, as well as penning a memoir. She’s been accepted to Harvard University but has deferred for a year to focus on her mental health.
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11 inspiring activists who prove there's no age limit on changing the Anne Frank, diarist The Dutch diarist’s record of life in hiding during the Holocaust has given millions of schoolchildren insight into the horrors of the Nazi persecution of the Jewish population during the 1940s. From 1942 until 1944, Anne chronicled her most innermost thoughts and feelings whilst hiding in an attic in Amsterdam with startling precocity, producing both an account of a teenager’s inner life but also a historical document of unprecedented weight. Anne died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at the age of 15, after her family was betrayed and arrested by the Gestapo, but her words have ensured her immortality.
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11 inspiring activists who prove there's no age limit on changing the Audrey Faye Hendricks, Civil Rights protester Known as the ‘Youngest Marcher’, in 1963 Audrey Faye Hendricks was the youngest known individual arrested for protesting during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. Nine years-old and the only child in her class to participate, Hendricks joined 2,000 high school students in Birmingham, Alabama in leaving school and marching against segregation. Along with many others, Hendricks was arrested and jailed for seven days, during which she had no contact with her parents.
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11 inspiring activists who prove there's no age limit on changing the Malala Yousafzai, activist A girl so famous she has reached mononymous status. Now 22, Malala’s activism came to global attention when, at the age of 15, she survived an assaination attempt in her native Pakistan in retaliation for speaking out in favour of female education. Since then, Malala has started an international fund, dedicated to helping girls achieve their goals through education, became the youngest person ever to be a Nobel Laureate and began studying for a degree at Oxford.
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11 inspiring activists who prove there's no age limit on changing the Sylvia Mendez , desegregationist While the 20th century black struggle for educational integration is rightly renowned, less is remembered about the fight Latinx students had to undergo to attend “white” schools. At eight-years-old, Sylvia Mendez was one of the key plaintiffs in a suit suing the Westminster district in California for segregating white and Mexican-American students. The 1947 ruling forced the local schools to integrate although it was limited to admitting Mexican-American students only. Mendez grew up to be an activist and in 2010 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her work in civil rights.
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11 inspiring activists who prove there's no age limit on changing the Emma Gonzalez, gun control campaigner Catapulated to global attention by a horrific tragedy, Emma Gonzalez was 18 years old when a former student killed 17 of her schoolmates at Majory Stoneman Douglas High School. In the aftermath, Gonzalez, alongside other survivors, emerged as furious, rallying beacons, calling for action against guns in the US. Together they led mass protests, including the 2018 March for Our Lives, where Gonzalez gave a tearful speech that was heard around the world.
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11 inspiring activists who prove there's no age limit on changing the Barbara Johns, desegregationist In 1951, at 16-years-old, Barbara Rose Johns led 450 black students out of their crowded, segregated school in Farmville, Virginia. They would not return for two weeks, a strike action aimed to secure them better educational facilities like those of the white schools nearby. Nothing happened so instead Johns launched legal action for integration. Her case ended up becoming one of the five suits that would make-up Brown vs the Board of Education - the landmark legal decision that ended educational segregation in America.
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11 inspiring activists who prove there's no age limit on changing the Sophie Scholl, Nazi objector Despite early membership of Hitler Youth organisations, Sophie Scholl became disillusioned with the Nazi party in the mid-1930s, after their nationalist, racist authortarianism swam into full view. While at school she began challenging the prevailing Nazi doctrine but it was upon beginning her studies at the University of Munich that Scholl’s dissent kicked up a gear. Along with brother Hans, she formed the White Rose Group, a resistance collective that circulated leaflets criticising the Nazi regime, the treatment of the Jews and the passive reaction of the German population. In 1943, Hans and Sophie were spotted distrbutting leaflets and promptly arrested. They both defied interrogation methods and refused to name any other White Rose members. On the 22 February 1943, Sophie was executed by guillotine.
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Click through the gallery above to see girls who have fought and continue to fight to make the world a little bit brighter for those who follow them.
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