After the slogans fade: Rethinking what it means to support the girl child

Every year on the National Girl Child Day, we celebrate the promise, potential and power of girls. We share messages, post slogans and applaud stories of exceptional success. But when the day passes, most girls return to lives unchanged — to classrooms they may not be allowed to finish, to homes where their voices carry less weight, to futures already negotiated on their behalf. Celebration matters. But when it is not followed by action, it becomes a comfortable substitute for accountability.

From the moment she is born, a girl learns the language of comparison and caution. Be careful. Adjust. Don’t ask for too much. In too many homes, a boy’s education is an investment; a girl’s is conditional. Even today, girls are pulled out of school to shoulder household responsibilities, married before they can make choices of their own, or quietly steered away from aspirations deemed “too ambitious.” These are not isolated failures. They are expressions of a mindset so normalised that it often goes unquestioned — and in doing so, quietly erodes a girl’s sense of possibility.

Over the years, we have learnt to rally around slogans that call for the girl child to be protected or saved. These campaigns have helped bring attention, but attention alone is not transformation. Girls do not need to be celebrated in posters and constrained in practice. They need to be enabled — with education that is uninterrupted, safety that does not demand silence or compliance, and the freedom to make choices about their own lives.

We already know that when girls are given equal opportunity, they thrive — not just as students or professionals, but as leaders, innovators and changemakers. The evidence is overwhelming. What holds them back is not a lack of ability, but a denial of access. A society that limits its girls limits itself. Empowering girls is not an act of charity; it is a measure of how seriously we take our own progress.

Girl Child Day should therefore make us uncomfortable. Are our schools genuinely safe and supportive for girls — not just on paper, but in everyday practice? Do we encourage our daughters to speak up, take risks and lead with the same ease as we encourage our sons? Do our laws translate into real protection, or do they stop at intent? And most importantly, what are we doing once the posts are shared and the hashtags fade?

Real change begins at home — in how we treat daughters and sons, whose ambitions we nurture, whose voices we interrupt, and whose we amplify. It continues when we listen to girls without judgement, allow them to dream without fear, and create spaces — in classrooms, workplaces and policy rooms — where they are not merely included, but taken seriously. The girl child does not need sympathy. She needs opportunity, safety, education and, above all, our trust.

This belief underpins our work at CRY. Across rural communities, we have seen girls who were once silent now leading school assemblies, demanding safer public spaces, and articulating their dreams with confidence. When systems shift, even slightly, girls respond with extraordinary courage and clarity.

So, on this Girl Child Day, let us move beyond celebration and commit to change. Because when a girl rises, she does not rise alone. She lifts families, strengthens communities and reshapes the future of our country. 

Kreeanne Rabadi is Director, CRY – Child Rights and You (West)

Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth