• Economic: Females are needed to work at home to allow parents to work, or families only has enough to educate one child and will educate males first.
• Social/Cultural: A belief that the role of females is to look after children and take care of the home and therefore does not need an education.
• Religious/Political: The Taliban although stating that they believed in the Islamic belief of education for males and females actually banned females from working, therefore eliminating female teachers and girls ability to get an education.

Why is Female Education Important?

What Problems can a lack of Education Cause?

• Emancipation - gives females greater freedom to get an education and therefore a job.
• Greater independence - females can care for themselves and therefore don't have to rely on their husbands/father's money and rules.
• If females have jobs they can then contribute to the economy (make products, pay taxes, etc.)
• Reduced fertility rates and birth rates (females will probably delay marriage and child birth and know how to use contraception)
• Confidence. Females will feel equal and be treated more equally giving them more self confidence and empowering them
• Equality. If females have the same educated they will be treated more fairly by families and communities. They should see an improvement in diet, health, etc.

• Dependence on husbands or fathers - therefore maintaining male dominance
• Illiteracy (makes many simple task like written instructions and even voting very hard)
• High birth rates and fertility rates as women are kept in traditional role and don't understand the importance of family planning.
• Lack of confidence - females will feel that they can't express opinions and remain in the same traditional female role of cook, cleaner and reproducer.
• It will be harder for find females to find well paid employment. Any work will probably be poorly paid e.g. domestic work
• Female health will remain poor as they do not know how to care for themselves, administer medicine, know the importance of hygiene, sanitation, etc.

• recurrent bladder and urinary tract infections;
• cysts;
• infertility;
• an increased risk of childbirth complications and newborn deaths;
• the need for later surgeries. For example, the FGM procedure that seals or narrows a vaginal opening (type 3 above) needs to be cut open later to allow for sexual intercourse and childbirth. Sometimes it is stitched again several times, including after childbirth, hence the woman goes through repeated opening and closing procedures, further increasing and repeated both immediate and long-term risks. (http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs241/en/)

• advocacy: developing publications and advocacy tools for international, regional and local efforts to end FGM within a generation;
• research: generating knowledge about the causes and consequences of the practice, how to eliminate it, and how to care for those who have experienced FGM;
• guidance for health systems: developing training materials and guidelines for health professionals to help them treat and counsel women who have undergone procedures.

• The role of women has been to stay at home and look after the children. Traditionally women have married young and had children young.
• When one member of the family has migrated it has been the male and he has sent remittances home.
• Women traditionally have had a poorer education so have not known about the opportunities presented by migration and may not have been qualified enough to get a job.
• Many migrant jobs have been manual and deemed unsuitable for females.
• Many societies have deemed it inappropriate for females to travel alone.

• Females leaving work to have a baby before achieving top positions and
• Females being slightly behind men in terms of entering universities and the workplace (in many countries women have only recently been emancipated in order to do this).