Girl child
??Francis Hoefman
Senior Vice President, HR- Leading people & culture and driving innovation through diversity to “create a cleaner healthier world”
In today’s world, a world of luxury, individualism, power, politics, abundance and constitutional rights and democracy in a lot of countries, we still need to face inequality for women and girls…
Girls who do not know what happens to them each month when they get their period and think they are injured and are scared, girls who get ashamed and isolated on a monthly basis when they have their period, girls who get married off as early as from teenage years, girls who are deprived from attending education, girls who grow up in domestic violence, girls who get sexually harassed and infected by deceases like HIV, girls whose voices are not heard, girls who are being told the only thing they are born for is to cook, attend to the housework and bare children. And Covid-19 stats show that women and young girls get dis proportionally disadvantaged through this crisis…
I often wonder what kind of a world that is then, certainly not a kind one, certainly not a democratic one and certainly not a wise one. And yet it is easy to put our heads in the sand and it is easy to let this play out and it certainly is easy to get depressed and cynical about it. And what good does that do?
Each of you who will read this, likely has a daughter, a sister, a girl stepchild, a girl godchild, a colleague, or any girl in their surroundings. What is the future and world you would want for them? We together can make that difference, starting with little actions each day and brick by brick we build a brighter future for girls around the world.
The UN has called for a campaign called: ”My voice, our equal future”. The picture above this article is with credits to the UN. So ask yourself: what is your story? I would love to see all of you sharing yours... For me certainly it is a confrontation that I can do so much more, that each action matters and that we should not give up on our ambition to create a gender balanced world of tomorrow.
Our stories can lead to voices ... and voices matter.
Luxury Property Manager. Junior Interior Designer
4 年I live in Indonesia, on a Muslim island. And here i can see this inequality and mistreatment of females on a daily basis.
PMO Lead E2E Planning @ Reckitt | Project & Change Management | Transformation | Planning | FMCG
4 年Always good to stop and reflect. Thanks for writing this. As mum of two boys I feel I also have an important role to play towards gender parity. I always challenge them when I hear "this is for girls or this is for boys". It all starts very early and if we don't educate our children from the early stages it will get more and more difficult to change the status quo.
VP Talent
4 年Francis Hoefman great article and great reflection. What can we do to make sure we can positively contribute to today’s world? What can we do to make our existence full of meaning? What can we do to find our purpose and to make a difference? Each of us has plenty of opportunities to create a positive change, starting from those nearer to us. Helping the women in our circle might be a great way to start. I personally mentor many talented women and this makes me feel I am contributing to create the change I want to see in the world!