Why concentrate on girls in Ethiopia?
In most families, if there is a choice of who to send to school, the son will go before the daughter. According to a 2003 statistic from UNESCO, only 43% of enrolled students in primary schools were female (57% male). This trend only grows worse as many girls who do attend primary school are often forced to drop out around age 12. UNESCO statistics show that the percent of females attending secondary school drops to 36%, while the male enrollment percentage raises to 64%. Some of the reason girls drop out of school around this age are to tend to herds, care for younger siblings or obtain jobs to make money for their families. Some of these jobs can put these girls in danger of being offered money for unhealthy things like sex. Girls are also given in marriage by their families at times, or become sexually active and contract AIDS/HIV. In rural areas, young girls are often kidnapped for wives by men from other villages and never seen by their families again. Studies have shown that in s
