Opinion
Girls Are Not Waiting
— Is Business Ready to Listen?
Global Child Forum
International Day of the Girl – October 11, 2025
Across the world, girls are on the frontlines of change. They are leading climate strikes, building tech solutions, and organizing social movements to meet today’s most urgent crises — from climate change and conflict to displacement and digital safety. This year’s theme for International Day of the Girl, “The girl I am, the change I lead,” is both a celebration and a challenge: to recognize girls not just for the obstacles they face, but for the solutions they bring.
Yet, too often, their voices go unheard. While girls are shaping the future, corporate strategies, policies, and boardroom decisions rarely reflect their perspectives. This is a missed opportunity — not only for girls, but for companies seeking to build sustainable, inclusive, and resilient businesses.
Listening is Leadership
At Global Child Forum, we believe that listening to children is not optional — it is a core responsibility for business. Through our global benchmarks, we assess how companies address children’s rights across their operations and supply chains. While progress has been made, very few companies meaningfully engage with girls as stakeholders, especially in contexts of crisis where their rights are most at risk.
Embedding girl-centered perspectives strengthens ESG strategies, future workforce pipelines, and long-term resilience. When companies listen to and co-create with girls, they gain insight into emerging risks and opportunities, foster innovation, and build trust with communities and consumers.
From Tokenism to Transformation
Girls don’t need to be “given” a voice — they already have one. What they need are platforms where their voices are heard, respected, and acted upon. This means going beyond symbolic gestures to structural engagement. Businesses can take action by:
- Creating girl-led spaces — such as youth advisory councils, innovation labs, or consultations — that influence policies, products, and practices.
- Investing in safe digital and physical spaces where girls can connect, learn, and lead.
- Embedding girls’ perspectives in human rights due diligence, ensuring their unique risks and needs are addressed in supply chains, product design, and marketing.
- Partnering with youth-led organizations to design solutions that are relevant and inclusive.
Beijing+30: An Unfinished Agenda
This year also marks 30 years since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the world’s most progressive blueprint for gender equality — and the first to explicitly recognize girls’ rights. While progress has been made, many of the commitments remain unfulfilled. Businesses have a critical role to play in delivering on this unfinished agenda.
By aligning corporate strategies with the Beijing commitments and the Sustainable Development Goals, companies can help close persistent gender gaps — from education and health to digital inclusion and economic empowerment — and ensure that girls are not only beneficiaries, but co-architects of change.
Celebrating Girl Changemakers
We are honored to be co-hosting the 2025 International Children’s Peace Prize with KidsRights on November 19 at Stockholm City Hall. This global event has celebrated the courage and innovation of young female changemakers who are challenging injustice, driving climate action, and reimagining the future for their communities. Their leadership reminds us what is possible when girls are not only heard, but supported to lead.
A Call to Business
Girls are not waiting for a better world. They are building it.
On this International Day of the Girl, we call on companies to stand with girls, not as passive beneficiaries, but as powerful partners.
- Listen to their voices.
- Invest in their leadership.
- Co-create solutions that address the crises shaping their lives.
In doing so, businesses will not only meet their human rights responsibilities — they will help unlock the potential of half of humanity to drive the transformations our world urgently needs.
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