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Photo: IRIN/Anthony Mitchell

Berhane Adere and Carol Bellamy in Addis Ababa.

ADDIS ABABA, 18 June 2004 (IRIN) - One of Ethiopia’s top female athletes announced on Thursday that she would spearhead a nationwide campaign aimed at increasing the number of girls attending school. The 10,000-metre world champion, Berhane Adere, joined Carol Bellamy, the executive director of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), in campaigning towards this objective. Speaking in the capital, Addis Ababa, the 30-year-old gold medallist told of how she had been identified as a potential world-class athlete. "I was in school when I was selected to participate in this sport. Being educated is very important for doing well in sports," she said. "When vying for a world record, we are told what time we have to make on a lap to beat the record. We have to calculate these things. Parents should educate their girls and advise them to go to school," she added. Berhane has become a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF to promote girls education in her country. She will be competing in the Olympic Games in Athens this summer. One-fifth more boys than girls in Ethiopia go to school. NGOs estimate that 84 percent of all child domestic workers in Addis Ababa are girls, many of whom are subjected to sexual abuse by their male employers. More than one-third do not go to school, and instead work exhausting 11-hour days, seven days a week. Almost half do not get paid, working instead for accommodation and food. Bellamy told a press conference in Addis Ababa that not only was it every child’s right to go to school but it also made economic and developmental sense. "The issue of education for children is not just something one hopes should happen but is the right of every child," she said. "A girl who gets a basic education will more likely grow to be a healthy adult, her children are more likely to be healthy, so it will reduce under-five mortality rates. A girl who continues on to secondary school is less likely to be infected with HIV/AIDS. So an investment in a girl getting educated is not only an investment in the girl but an investment in the family." She praised the Ethiopian government for increasing school enrolment from 30 percent in 1996 to over 50 percent today, but stressed that more needed to be done. Under UN Millennium Development Goals, all children should receive primary education by 2015. Ethiopia is one of 25 countries where UNICEF is trying to ensure that the number of girls going to school equals that of boys by 2005.