The commitment to tackle discrimination and exclusion and advance children’s rights and equality for girls is the mainstay of global policies around the world. The drive to tackle the exclusion and gender inequality is in response to the fact that most of the countries have entrenched gender inequality, discrimination against girls and women, and son preference as salient features. These affect the care and access to services and opportunities provided to girls, right from birth. (Plan International, 2017) This paper aims to respond to the fact that Early Childhood Development (ECD) initiatives and programmes, both within the country and outside, often appear to give limited attention to gender inequality and discrimination. Furthermore, initiatives to promote girls’ rights and gender equality often pay little attention to earlychildhood,instead they focuson older girls and adolescents. It is true that the most significant gender-specificrights violations and gaps usually affect older girls, adolescents and young women. Data procured from global sources do not indicate significant differences between girls and boys in terms of infant mortality, under-five malnutrition or enrolment in pre-school. But if we focus just on the global data, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that in many communities and right from birth, gender discrimination affects girls disproportionally which threatens girls’ chances to realise their rights and to live a life of dignity. In such a case, boys tooimbibe a life of harmful notions of masculinity.