Shalina is a Bangladeshi girl who is about to finish school. But for Shalina, there will be no pre-exam jitters, no university applications, no diplomas, no career plans. There will not even be a graduation. Shalina is 13, and she is about to join 73 million school-age girls around the world who are not in school.
For Shalina's parents, and millions of other parents like them, educating a daughter is a waste of time and money. They married off her older sister at age 15, having decided to use their scarce resources for their son's education. Shalina used to worry about lessons and tests, but she worries much more about having to get married and bear children while still a child herself. She used to dream about being a doctor, but now faces a life of cleaning houses during the day and tutoring younger children at night. She used to be a happy girl, but now writes of wishing she were a boy.
Shalina and her 73 million peers are denied not only something many of us take for granted; they are denied a fundamental human right spelled out in international instruments their governments have signed on to, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child: the right to education.