This year, International Day of the Girl had a powerful theme: “Girl Force: Unscripted and Unstoppable”.

“Today, girls are moving from dreaming to achieving,” the UN said in its statement. “Girls are breaking boundaries and barriers posed by stereotypes and exclusion.”

They certainly are, and it’s exciting to see. Greta Thunberg, climate activist, fits the ‘unstoppable’ description and is one of a number of girls calling attention to our climate emergency. Nina Gualinga is an indigenous activist from the Ecuadorian Amazon who won WWF’s top youth conservation award last year. Ridhima Pandey, now 11, filed a lawsuit against the Indian government for failing to protect the environment when she was nine years old.

And there are other bold and inspiring girls taking on important issues and challenging the notion that they should be demure, not get angry or stay at home.

Irene Evbade-dan led the G(irls)20 initiative in Japan, taking female empowerment issues to world leaders at the G20 Summit in Osaka. She is tired of outdated social norms. “We’ve been told that we have to smile, we have to act in a certain way. … And I’ve always been taught that I’m not qualified or I’m not good enough or I’m not worth being here.”

In Hong Kong Fariha Salma Deiya Bakar, a member of the Commission on Children, is focused on improving the lives of young people from ethnic minority backgrounds. At 14, Hillary Yip is one of Hong Kong’s youngest CEOs and started her MinorMynas language learning app when she was just 10 years old.

These young women have challenged pervasive gender expectations that start early. In France, toymakers have signed a pact to boost gender neutrality in toys and games, discouraging the “insidious” gender stereotypes which the government blames for keeping women out of maths and science careers, saying “there are toys for girls that are generally very pink and generally very focused on domestic life, whereas toys for boys are generally themed around construction, space travel and science and technology.”

In Hong Kong, we know girls often outperform boys in education, including in STEM subjects, in secondary school and even at University. It is heartening to see that efforts to increase women in engineering careers, for example, are beginning to have an impact. But there is still critical work to be done.

TWF salutes all of the young women and girls who are defying gender stereotypes and striving to make the world a better place. We will continue to work with the community to actively encourage girls to study STEM subjects through our Girls Go Tech Alumni Programme and we will carry on the work to help girls continue to break barriers, challenge gender stereotypes and strive to be unstoppable.

Get in touch Fiona.Nott@twfhk.org.

PS – TWF is currently examining the Chief Executive’s 2019 Policy Address, delivered this afternoon, for ways in which proposed policies and initiatives will tackle some of the pressing gender issues in this city. We will be in touch with a more detailed analysis next week - stay tuned!