Betty Makoni

Girls Rights Advocate - standing up for human rights

A victim of childhood sexual abuse, Betty Makoni used her experience to transform the lives of girls in southern Africa by creating a girls' rights advocacy group with 30,000 members in Zimbabwe. Founded in 1998, Girl Child Network (GCN) empowers girls and works to eradicate all forms of abuse and practices that impede their full physical, emotional and spiritual growth.

GCN uses a human rights-based approach to address gender inequalities in education and in other social, political and economic spheres. The group's methodologies have been replicated in Swaziland, Malawi and South Africa. "Our goal," says Makoni, "is to dismantle the link between culture and violence against the girls and enable them to take charge of their own destiny."

Standing up for the principles of the Universal Declaration
Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirms the rights of children to "special care and assistance." Children's rights were further strengthened through the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which nearly every country in the world has signed and ratified.

Learn more:
>>Bio: Betty Makoni
>>Girl Child Network

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