Investing in the futures of the world's 60 million ten-year-old girls would pay all sorts of dividends to developing nations, according to a new report from the United Nations Population Fund.

The State of World Population 2016 notes that 90 percent of ten-year-olds live in less developed regions of the world, with half in Asia and the Pacific, 20 percent in India, and about 13 percent in China.  And too often it is when a girl reaches the age of ten that parents start making decisions about education, work, marriage and child bearing.

In the West, girls enjoy far more opportunities than in parts of the developing world, where they are seen "as a commodity that may be bought, sold or traded," pulled out of school, forced to marry, and "begin a lifetime of servitude."

"Impeding a girl's safe, healthy path through adolescence to a productive and autonomous adulthood is a violation of her rights," said Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, Executive Director of the UN Population Fund.  "How we invest in and support 10-year-old girls today will determine what our world will look like in 2030," he added.

The report says that if all 10-year-old girls in developing countries who never attend school or drop out early were to complete secondary education, their earnings would trigger a US$21 billion annual dividend.