16 June,2011 07:31 AM IST | | Agencies
Afghanistan tops the chart while Pakistan emerges third in the list of countries deemed unsafe for the fairer sex, says global survey
If violence, dismal healthcare and brutal poverty make Afghanistan the world's most dangerous country for women, India ranks fourth in a global survey of threat perception to the fairer sex, primarily due to female foeticide, infanticide and human trafficking.
Congo came a close second in the list of the most dangerous countries for women due to rampant rape in the country,u00a0 followed by Pakistan, a poll by a gender experts from a legal news service said yesterday.
Around 100 million Indians, mostly females, were victims of human trafficking in 2009
"Ongoing 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.
The poll by TrustLaw, an online legal news service run by Thomson Reuters Foundation, marked the launch of its new TrustLaw Women section on its website, a global hub of news and information on women's rights.
TrustLaw asked 213 gender experts from five continents to rank countries by overall perceptions of danger as well as by six risks. The risks were health threats, sexual violence, non-sexual violence, cultural or religious factors, lack of access to resources and trafficking.
Some experts said the poll showed that subtle dangers such as discrimination that don't grab headlines are sometimes just as significant risks for women as bombs, bullets, stonings and systematic rape in conflict zones.
Litany of perils
Afghanistan emerged as the most dangerous country for women overall and worst in three of the six risk categories: health, non-sexual violence and lack of access to economic resources.
Respondents cited sky-high maternal mortality rates, limited access to doctors and a near total lack of economic rights. Afghan women have a one-in-11 chance of dying in childbirth, according to UNICEF.
The Democratic Republic of Congo, still reeling from the 1998-2003 war and the accompanying humanitarian disaster that killed 5.4 million people, came second mainly due to staggering levels of sexual violence in the lawless African continent.
Pakistan ranked third largely 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.
Trafficking
In 2009, India's then home secretary Madhukar Gupta estimated that 100 million people, mostly women and girls, were victims of trafficking in India that year.
"The practice is common but lucrative so it goes untouched by the government and police," said Cristi Hegranes, founder of the Global Press institute, which trains women in developing countries to be journalists.
The country's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) estimated that in 2009 about 90 per cent of trafficking took place within the country and that there were some 3 million prostitutes, of which about 40 per cent were children.
Around 50 million girls are thought to be "missing" over the past century due to female infanticide and foeticide in the country, the UN Population Fund says.
