EARLY CHILDHOOD CARE AND EDUCATION WITH SPECIAL FOCUS ON EQUALITY OF THE GIRL CHILD

The commitment to tackle discrimination and exclusion and advance children’s rights and equality for
girls is the mainstay of global policies around the world. The drive to tackle the exclusion and gender
inequality is in response to the fact that most of the countries have entrenched gender inequality,
discrimination against girls and women, and son preference as salient features. These affect the care
and access to services and opportunities provided to girls, right from birth. (Plan International, 2017)
This paper aims to respond to the fact that Early Childhood Development (ECD) initiatives and
programmes, both within the country and outside, often appear to give limited attention to gender
inequality and discrimination. Furthermore, initiatives to promote girls’ rights and gender equality
often pay little attention to earlychildhood,instead they focuson older girls and adolescents. It is true
that the most significant gender-specificrights violations and gaps usually affect older girls,
adolescents and young women. Data procured from global sources do not indicate significant
differences between girls and boys in terms of infant mortality, under-five malnutrition or enrolment in
pre-school. But if we focus just on the global data, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that in many
communities and right from birth, gender discrimination affects girls disproportionally which threatens
girls’ chances to realise their rights and to live a life of dignity. In such a case, boys tooimbibe a life of
harmful notions of masculinity.