Targeted violence against female public officials, dismal healthcare and desperate poverty make Afghanistan the world’s most dangerous country in which to be born a woman, according to a global survey released yesterday.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo), Pakistan, India and Somalia feature in descending order after Afghanistan in the list of the five worst states, the poll among gender experts shows.
The appearance of India, a country rapidly developing into an economic superpower, was unexpected. It is ranked as extremely hazardous because of the subcontinent’s high level of female infanticide and sex trafficking.
Others were less surprised to be on the list.
Informed about her country’s inclusion, Somali Minister of Women’s Development and Family Welfare Maryan Qasim responded: “I thought Somalia would be first on the list, not fifth.”
The survey has been compiled by the Thomson Reuters Foundation to mark the launch of a Web site, TrustLaw Woman, aimed at providing free legal advice for women’s groups around the world.
High maternal mortality rates, limited access to doctors and a “near total lack of economic rights” render Afghanistan such a threat to its female inhabitants.
“Continuing conflict, NATO airstrikes and cultural practices combine to make Afghanistan a very dangerous place for women,” said Antonella Notari, head of Women Change Makers, a group that supports women social entrepreneurs around the world.
“Women who do attempt to speak out or take on public roles that challenge ingrained gender stereotypes of what is acceptable for women to do or not, such as working as policewomen or news broadcasters, are often intimidated or killed,” she said.
The “staggering levels of sexual violence” in the lawless east of the DR Congo account for its second place in the list. One recent US study claimed that more than 400,000 women are raped there each year. The UN has called the DR Congo the rape capital of the world.
“Rights activists say militia groups and soldiers target all ages, including girls as young as three and elderly women,” the survey reports. “They are gang raped, raped with bayonets and some have guns shot into their vaginas.”
Pakistan is ranked third on the basis of cultural, tribal and religious practices harmful to women.
“These include acid attacks, child and forced marriage and punishment or retribution by stoning or other physical abuse,” the poll found.
Divya Bajpai, reproductive health adviser at the International HIV/Aids Alliance, added: “Pakistan has some of the highest rates of dowry murder, so-called honor killings and early marriage.”
According to Pakistan’s human rights commission, as many as 1,000 women and girls die in honor killings annually.
India is the fourth-most dangerous country.
“India’s central bureau of investigation estimated that in 2009 about 90 percent of trafficking took place within the country and that there were some 3 million prostitutes, of which about 40 percent were children,” the survey found.
Forced marriage and forced labor trafficking add to the dangers for women.
“Up to 50 million girls are thought to be ‘missing’ over the past century due to female infanticide and feticide,” the UN population fund says, because parents prefer to have young boys rather than girls.
Somalia, in political disintegration, suffers high levels of maternal mortality, rape, female genital mutilation and limited access to education and healthcare.
Qasim added: “The most dangerous thing a woman in Somalia can do is to become pregnant. When a woman becomes pregnant her life is 50-50 because there is no antenatal care at all. There are no hospitals, no healthcare, no nothing.”
“Add to that the rape cases that happen on a daily basis, and female genital mutilation being done to every single girl in Somalia. Add to that famine and drought. Add to that the fighting [which means] you can die any minute, any day,” she said.
Monique Villa, the chief executive of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, said: “Hidden dangers — like a lack of education or terrible access to healthcare — are as deadly, if not more so, than physical dangers like rape and murder which usually grab the headlines.”
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