HuffPost: International Day of the Girl Child: Helping Girls Pursue Their Dreams
Deborah Birx, U.S. global AIDS coordinator and U.S. special representative for Global Health Diplomacy

“On the International Day of the Girl Child — and every day — the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) celebrates the extraordinary power and potential of girls around the world, and we reaffirm our commitment to helping them pursue their dreams. Empowering, supporting, and protecting girls is critical to controlling and ultimately ending the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Unless we deliver for girls, we will not succeed. This means understanding the unique challenges faced by girls and developing creative solutions to address them. … We have made important gains for girls, but we must continue to follow the data and build on the lessons we have learned to do more and do it better, including through implementation of the new PEPFAR Strategy for Accelerating HIV/AIDS Epidemic Control. … Preventing HIV among adolescent girls and young women is our ultimate goal, and that means walking with them every step along the way, pursuing the equality and respect that every girl around the world deserves” (10/10).