As is the case in most poor countries, girls in Malawi are often burdened with the responsibility of becoming a wage earner in the family.  Because the Malawi government only pays for primary school, many poor families send their daughters to work as domestic workers around the age of 14 instead of sending them to secondary school. If a family is forced to choose between educating a boy or a girl, they will almost always choose to keep the boy in school.  Girls are not only expected to bring in a wage, but are also responsible for unpaid domestic work such as cooking, cleaning, and taking care of younger siblings. Caroline Mbewe, a 14 year old domestic worker for an affluent family in Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe, spoke to IRIN. 

“My bosses treat me well but I don’t want to continue working. I want to be like their daughters; I want to go to school,” she said.

Malawi’s initial report to the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child - a universally agreed set of standards and obligations on child protection - noted that approximately 20 percent of all children under the age of 15 were in full-time employment, and a further 21 percent worked part-time. Two decades later the statistics are much the same.

Gender disparity in education limits the opportunities available for all girls and prevents them from developing to their full potential. To close this gap between boys’ and girls’ education, the UN Millennium Development Goals has set the goal of ensuring that all children complete primary school by 2015. 

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