Michelle Obama to Promote Girls’ Education During Five-day Asia Trip

First Lady Michelle Obama embarks on a five-day Asia trip Wednesday to launch the Obama Administration’s initiative "Let Girls Learn," promoting the education of millions of girls worldwide. Ahead of her stops in Japan and Cambodia, Obama and her husband said the inability of an estimated 62 million girls to attend school worldwide should be a foreign policy priority.

The first lady wrote in The Wall Street Journal that the fact that tens of millions of girls are not being adequately educated is more than “a tragic waste of human potential. It is also a serious public health challenge, a drag on national economies, as well as global prosperity, and a threat to the security of countries around the world.”

Obama said that as of 2012, every developing region had achieved, or was close to achieving, gender parity in primary education. But, she added, a gender gap remains in secondary education, where girls are subjected to “the cultural values and practices that define, and limit, the prospects of women in their societies.”

'Let Girls Learn'

In launching the "Let Girls Learn" campaign earlier this month, the first lady said the Peace Corps, a U.S.-funded volunteer development agency, would play a key role.

"This effort will draw on the talent and energy of the nearly 7,000 Peace Corps volunteers serving in more than 60 countries. Through this effort, Peace Corps will be supporting hundreds of new community projects to help girls go to school and stay in school," she said.

"And, I want to emphasize that these programs will be community-generated and community-led. They will be based on solutions devised by local leaders, families and even, yes, the girls themselves."

At the same event, President Obama said his administration is making clear to partner countries this is a foreign policy priority.

"We know that, when girls are educated, they’re more likely to delay marriage. Their future children, as a consequence, are more likely to be healthy and better nourished. Their future wages increase, which, in turn, strengthens the security of their family, and national growth gets a boost as well," the president said.
"From a political standpoint and a security standpoint, places where women and girls are treated as full and equal citizens tend to be more stable, tend to be more democratic. So, this is not just a humanitarian issue. This is an economic issue and it is a security issue, and that’s why it has to be a foreign policy priority." (VOA)