TOKYO: Michelle Obama spoke Thursday of a “crisis” gripping the world as she launched an initiative to help get girls into education, on the second day of her trip to Japan.

The US First Lady told an audience of women in Tokyo that 62 million girls around the world were being denied the right to go to school.

“It is truly a crisis,” said Obama, wearing a bright, floral patterned jacket and skirt.

“We often focus on the economic barriers girls face — school fees or uniforms, or how they live miles from the nearest school and have no safe transportation, or how the school in their community doesn’t have bathroom facilities for girls.

“But we all know that the problem here isn’t just about infrastructure and resources. It’s also about attitudes and beliefs. It’s about whether fathers — and mothers — think their daughters are as worthy of an education as their sons.”

Obama, who arrived in Tokyo on Wednesday without her husband President Barack Obama, said both Japan and the United States were big donors in the “Let Girls Learn” initiative, which aims to help young women in developing countries.

The US First Lady was speaking alongside Akie Abe, the wife of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of President John F. Kennedy and the current American ambassador to Japan.