Statement by: Matthew Kelson, Adviser, Australian Mission to the UN 
As delivered

Thank you Chair.

We thank the South African Development Community for its efforts on 'The girl child' resolution.

Australia is committed to advancing gender equality and the rights of the girl child. Every day, more than 40,000 girls are forced into marriage. Globally, nearly 1 in 4 girls and women between the ages of 15 and 19 are neither employed nor in education, compared to 1 in 10 boys. Girls often face the double burden of being both young and female, and that is why a specific resolution highlighting the unique experiences of the girl child is important.

We appreciate that this year's resolution sought to add new elements on the impact of digital technologies on girls, however we would like to convey our concerns with the final text.

As a biennial resolution, this year was an opportunity to strengthen the text as a whole. Australia was prepared to engage constructively on the resolution, in its entirety, as a comprehensive update to the text is long overdue. Disappointingly, only a handful of new paragraphs were open for discussion. We regret that Australia, along with other Member States, broke silence on one of these paragraphs, because our concerns had not been addressed.

In particular, Australia regrets that PP 11 adds unprecedented language on families which appears to centralise the rights of the family over the rights of the girl child. While we acknowledge the role of families in the lives of children, we must focus on the essence of this resolution, which is about the human rights of the girl child. In our view, the adopted formulation shifts the focus away from girls and also, it fails to recognize that families take diverse forms. Moreover, the inclusion of 'family-friendly and family-oriented policies' assumes implementation of a narrow range of policies needed to achieve gender equality.

We therefore appreciate the facilitator's presentation of an oral revision today, which provides the necessary context of the digital environment to the paragraph.

Australia emphasises that a range of gender-transformative and inclusive policies that respond specifically to the needs of the girl child are required to overcome structural and systematic barriers for the realisation of girls' empowerment and their enjoyment of universal human rights.

We urge the facilitators to take these concerns into consideration when the resolution is next presented during the 80th Session of the General Assembly, and we ask for a negotiation on the text in full.

I thank you Chair.