National Girl Child Day

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Last Updated24/01/2022

National Girl Child Day is celebrated in the country on January 24 every year with an objective to provide support and opportunities to the girls of India.

National Girl Child Day was first initiated in 2008 by the Ministry of Women and Child Development.
It aims towards promoting awareness about the rights of the girl child and to increase awareness on the importance of girl education, and their health and nutrition and also to promote the girls position in the society to make their living better among the society.
Gender discrimination is a major problem that girls or women face throughout their life.

To create awareness about the rights a girl owns and to give girls the opportunities like everyone else, also to support the girl child of the nation and remove gender-based biases.
To celebrate this day to promote awareness about the inequalities that a girl child faces and educate people about girl’s education.
To value them and to respect them like everybody else and give a new perspective towards girl child and to decrease discrimination.
The main focus is on changing society’s attitude towards girls, decrease female feticide and create awareness about the decreasing sex ratio.

Decline in Child Sex Ratio (CSR) since 1961 (from 976 in 1961 to 927 in 2001 and 918 in 2011), a matter of grave concern as it reflected the low status of women in our society and indicates her disempowerment over a life-cycle continuum.
Declining CSR is also indicative of pre-birth discrimination manifested through gender biased sex selection and post birth discrimination against girls (in terms of health care, nutrition and educational opportunities).
The sharp decline is associated with an intersection of various factors such as the increasing spread and misuse of technology for prenatal sex selective elimination, changing aspirations of urban and rural societies, changes in family structures and reproductive decision making, favoring a smaller family size.

Launched by the Hon’ble Prime Minister on 22nd January, 2015 in Panipat, Haryana to address the issue of decline in CSR and related issues of empowerment of girls and women over a life cycle continuum.
The Scheme was initially launched in 100 districts in 2014-15 (Phase-1), and was expanded to 61 additional districts in 2015-16 (Phase-2).
Following initial success of the scheme, the initiative has been expanded to 640 districts of the Country (as per Census 2011) on 8th March 2018.
The Overall Goal of the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP) Scheme is to celebrate the girl child, enable her education.

The Scheme is being implemented with a goal to celebrate the girl child and enable her education.
The objectives of the Scheme are as under:
To prevent gender biased sex selective elimination
To ensure survival and protection of the girl child
To ensure education and participation of the girl child

Scheme has stirred up collective consciousness towards changing the mindset of the public to acknowledge the rights of the girl child.
Increase in 19 points in Sex Ratio at Birth at National level from 918 (2014-15) to 937 (2020-21)[Source: HMIS data, MoHFW (April-March, 2014-15 & 2020-21)].
Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER): Enrollment of Girls in secondary education increased from 77.45% in 2014-15 to 81.32% in 2018-19[Source: U-DISE, Mo Education (2018-19 data is provisional)].
Under Five Child Mortality (Female) has reduced from 45 in 2014 to 36 in 2018. [Source: SRS census india.gov.in].
Percentage of 1st Trimester ANC Registration has shown improvement from 61% in 2014-15 to 73.9% in 2020-21[Source: HMIS data, MoHFW (April-March, 2014-15 & 2020-21].
Percentage of Institutional Deliveries has also shown an improvement from 87% in 2014-15 to 94.8% in 2020-21[Source: HMIS data, MoHFW (April-March, 2014-15 & 2020-21].

In view of COVID 19 situation in the country, it has been decided that all programs should be organised on virtual/ online mode.
National Commission of Women is organizing a virtual discussion through which their speakers will contribute to raise awareness about the rights of girls and on the importance of girl education.
NCPCR will be holding a webinar on the topic,’ Legislative Rights of the Girl Child’. Hon’ble Justice Shri Kalpesh Satyendra Jhaveri, former Chief Justice of Orissa High Court will be the main speaker for the webinar.
All the States/UTs s and 405 multi – sectoral districts under BBBP to organize online programmes such as Gram Sabha/Mahila Sabha on CSR, programme with schools on value of girl child, Posters/Slogan-writing/ Drawing/ Painting competition among school on STEM related topics, and run stories in local media about BBBP local champions etc.