Harmful practices against girls cause profound and lasting trauma, robbing them of their right to reach their potential in life. Harmful practices, such as child marriage and female genital mutilation, are inflicted on girls by their families and propped up by discrimination and community norms. This year, 2020, for example, 4.1 million girls are at risk of female genital mutilation, one in five marriages today is to underage females and one pernicious effect of preferring sons over daughters is a shocking deficit of 140 million females.

A decade of action towards the achievement of the SDGs calls for a collective effort to end all harmful practices against women and girls. Get a copy of the 2020 State of World Population Report for more information.