Empowering girls everywhere on International Day of the Girl

Each year, October 11th is recognized as the International Day of the Girl (#DayOfTheGirl) by the United Nations.

The day highlights and openly addresses the needs and challenges girls face, while also promoting girls' empowerment, successes and the fulfillment of their human rights.

Twitter serves the public conversation. To help bring attention to the challenges girls are facing around the world, Twitter worked with Plan Canada International to design a custom #DayOfTheGirl emoji. The emoji is added to every tweet that uses the hashtag #DayOfTheGirl.

Twitter is a place where people from around the world come together in an open and free exchange of ideas. The hashtag has been translated into 16 languages and will deliver the same emoji here at home and across the world to help unite the conversation and call to action.

Canadians have a special connection to #DayOfTheGirl. It was created in 2012 thanks to help from thousands of individuals who signed petitions and wrote letters to their elected officials. The Canadian government played a key role in having Canada lead the call to create #DayOfTheGirl.

The fight for girls rights and equality continues, even in Canada:

Every girl deserves an equal start in life and the chance to grow to achieve her full potential. Girls around the world are facing incredibly difficult fights for equality.

This year the United Nations is focusing heavily on girls education and empowerment.

Some of the many issues facing girls include poverty, access to water and child marriage.

Girls are relying on the global community to join with them and raise their voices. Michelle Obama (@MichelleObama) sums up why #DayOfTheGirl is so important and why it brings the fight out in women and girls:

Keep Twitter close for top content on #DayOfTheGirl and join the conversation year-round.