Steering slightly away from the usual makeup and beauty topics we here at EF Creative Studios want to shed light on other topics we are also passionate about – Women’s rights. Recently, we had the pleasure of working with Plan International Ireland on a shoot representing and highlighting the violations refugee girls face and just how vulnerable they are. We want to stand up for the Lost Girls and speak out about this crisis.

So, to begin this new section on the blog we thought it fitting to discuss a matter that is so so important to become aware of and stand up as women here for other women.

We don’t really know how lucky we are sometimes. Sometimes it really does take something as striking and real as this issue to really make you stop and think how unfair the world can be. Everyone deserves a chance in life. A chance to be who you want to be, a chance to pursue the career you want, a chance to fall in love with who you choose and a chance to be educated and free. But not everyone is as lucky as us. Not everyone get’s these ‘luxuries’. You see, it is these simple steps in life, that to many seem normal and easy that others don’t even get to dream about having.

The Plan International Ireland campaign highlights these girls, the girls who don’t get to have a choice and the girls who need someone to stand up for them and say ‘this is not okay’. The shoot consisted of over 100 girls from Talented Kids Performing Arts School, MVW Talent Agency and Dizzy footwork Dance Academy standing with refugee girls dressed as child brides and abuse victims in a mannequin style formation to shed light on the reality for 16.5 million girls who are globally displaced because of conflict or persecution. The actors represented the actual violations and unfairness these girls face while in exile. The reality is refugee girls living in such conflict are that bit more vulnerable and face child marriage, violence while being denied any education due to their surrounding circumstances.

Can you imagine a life like this. Not only does daily life consist of conflict, war and uncertainty but also because of your gender you are subjected to enforcement and deprived of being educated. While we are in the age of growing feminism and activism it’s important to retract a little at times and realise just how extreme circumstances can extend to in this area.

While we independent women are striving for equality in the workplace etc.. some of these young girls don’t even have a choice in who they get married to, let alone the fact they are more than likely going to become child brides. When we were their age we were in school, dreading the thoughts of exams and homework, out at weekends socialising and beginning to create love lives at our own pace and freedom to do so in most cases. We had goals, dreams, plans for a future- a future we expect is achievable because it is. Yes, we still encounter many challenges and in many cases are still made feel inferior to our male counterparts but we are taking a stand against that.. and rightly so, we should be equal.

But imagine a world where dreaming and planning weren’t even an option. A world where your life is laid out by others and by situations beyond your control. A world where you are married off as a teenager, having a baby while you are still a baby yourself and more than likely caught up in a vacuum of violence and abuse forced to drop out of school and living in dire conditions. This is reality for these girls. During a time of never ending conflict, in a world where there have been fifteen conflicts in the past five years, from Syria to Yemen this reality is increasing and worsening rapidly. The 16.5 million girls who have been forced to leave home because of such conflict can come across as a statistic, but half of these girls are children and all of them a real people with real names. They deserve a real life.

Being a girl in this situation is unimaginable, but as a girl in a world where our voices are heard we should use them to stand up for those who aren’t. The Lost Girls are silenced, their voices are lost. But ours aren’t. Let’s stand up for the Lost Girls in anyway we can, even just by recognising them and highlighting that they should no longer be invisible. 

Image Credit- Plan International Ireland