VOA慢速英语2017--October 11 Marks International Day of the Girl

 

This is What’s Trending Today…

For the past five years, October 11 has marked the International Day of the Girl.

The United Nations established the day to bring attention to the needs and difficulties that girls face around the world. It also calls for empowerment and improved rights of the world’s 1.1 billion girls.

The UN and other organizations say one in four girls gets married as a child. Every 10 minutes, somewhere in the world, a girl is violently killed.

The groups also note that more than 130 million girls are not able to attend school. And, in many conflict areas, girls are two times more likely to not get an education.

This week, the advocacy organization ONE published a list of the 10 hardest countries for girls to get an education. Nine of the countries were in Africa, south of the Saharan desert. Number one was South Sudan, where 73 percent of girls do not go to school. In Niger, number three on the list, only 17 percent of girls between the ages of 15 to 24 can read.

Afghanistan is next. It has the greatest gender¹ difference in education. Just 71 girls go to primary school for every 100 boys.

Gayle Smith is president of the ONE campaign. She described the more than 130 million girls out of school as “potential engineers, entrepreneurs², teachers and politicians whose leadership the world is missing³ out on.”

The ONE Campaign also reported this week that the number of girls not getting an education rose from 130.3 million to 130.9 million in the past year.

People marked the Day of the Girl on social media.

It was a trending topic worldwide on Twitter and Facebook. And on YouTube, a special Day of the Girl music video set to a Beyonce song trended, too. The song is “Freedom,” from Beyonce’s album, “Lemonade.”

The UN’s Global Goals project made the video. It shows girls from all over the world dancing and singing the words to “Freedom:”

“Freedom! Freedom! I can't move.

Freedom, cut me loose!

Freedom! Freedom! Where are you?

Cause I need freedom too!"

In just one day, it has more than 1.5 million views.

And that’s What’s Trending Today.

I'm Ashley Thompson.

Words in This Story

empowerment - n. power given to someone to do something; the process of becoming stronger and more confident

advocacy - n. the act or process of supporting a cause or proposal⁴

potential - adj. capable of becoming real

1 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

2 entrepreneurs   

企业家( entrepreneur的名词复数 )； 主办人

参考例句：

• He is one of the entrepreneurs of the concert. 他是这场音乐会的主办人之一。
• Entrepreneurs are free to develop their businesses. 企业家们可以任意发展自己的企业。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件

3 missing   

adj.遗失的，缺少的，失踪的

参考例句：

• Check the tools and see if anything is missing.检点一下工具，看有无丢失。
• All the others are here;he's the only one missing.别人都来了，就短他一个。

4 proposal   

n.提议，建议；求婚

参考例句：

• I feel that we ought to accept his proposal.我觉得我们应该接受他的建议。
• They could not gain over anyone to support their proposal.他们无法争取到支持他们建议的人。