Women around the world face grave challenges like: rape,
infanticide, female genital mutilation, and sex trafficking.
Last week the Thomson Reuters Foundation released a survey
listing the five worst countries in the world to be a woman. The
survey ranked each country by six factors: health,
discrimination and lack of access to resources, cultural and
religious practices, sexual violence, human trafficking, and
conflict-related violence. The results showed that Afghanistan
was the worst place in the world to be a woman followed by the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan, India, and Somalia
in decreasing order and interestingly all but India are also
listed in the top 12 of Foreign Policy and Fund of Peace’s
Failed States Index. In each of these counties woman face
different challenges that pose a significant risk to their
lives. According to the Population Reference Bureau (PRB),
Afghanistan has the second highest lifetime risk of dying from
maternal related causes, in Afghanistan that risk is 1 in 8.