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Today is International Literacy Day.
And the focus this year is on women and girls.
There are 796 million illiterate adults in the world.
Nearly 70 per cent of them are women.
Irina Bokova is the Director-General of the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural organization, UNESCO.
"This is an intolerable situation, reflecting one of the most
persistent injustices of our times:
unequal access to education.
There is no justification, be it cultural, economic or social,
for denying girls and women an education.
It is a basic right and an absolute condition for reaching
all the internationally agreed development goals.
When a woman is literate she can make choices to
dramatically change her life for the better."