Its official.
According to a G20 poll that is to be presented at the G20 Summit on June 18-19, India is listed as the WORST country amongst the 20 member nations to be a woman in!
What's worse is (I say this for all our bravado and "assumptions" that we have more liberty, freedom and all that than our counterparts in the Arab World) even Saudi Arabia is one place ahead of us!
According to the poll infanticide, dowry deaths, child marriage and domestic slavery make India the worst amongst 20 nations for a woman. And while Saudi Arabia where women are banned from driving and only won the right to vote in 2011 is better off because the women are very well educated.
"In India, women and girls continue to be sold as chattels, married off as young as 10, burned alive as a result of dowry-related disputes and young girls exploited and abused as domestic slave labor," said Gulshun Rehman, health program development adviser at Save the UK, who was one of those polled.
"This is despite a groundbreakingly progressive Domestic Violence Act enacted in 2005 outlawing all forms of violence against women and girls."
TrustLaw (the agency that conducted the poll) asked aid professionals, academics, health workers, policymakers, journalists and development specialists with expertise in gender issues to rank the 19 countries of the G20 in terms of the overall best and worst to be a woman.
They also ranked countries in six categories: quality of health, freedom from violence, participation in politics, work place opportunities, access to resources such as education and property rights and freedom from trafficking and slavery. (Source: Reuters.com)
According to a G20 poll that is to be presented at the G20 Summit on June 18-19, India is listed as the WORST country amongst the 20 member nations to be a woman in!
What's worse is (I say this for all our bravado and "assumptions" that we have more liberty, freedom and all that than our counterparts in the Arab World) even Saudi Arabia is one place ahead of us!
According to the poll infanticide, dowry deaths, child marriage and domestic slavery make India the worst amongst 20 nations for a woman. And while Saudi Arabia where women are banned from driving and only won the right to vote in 2011 is better off because the women are very well educated.
"In India, women and girls continue to be sold as chattels, married off as young as 10, burned alive as a result of dowry-related disputes and young girls exploited and abused as domestic slave labor," said Gulshun Rehman, health program development adviser at Save the UK, who was one of those polled.
"This is despite a groundbreakingly progressive Domestic Violence Act enacted in 2005 outlawing all forms of violence against women and girls."
TrustLaw (the agency that conducted the poll) asked aid professionals, academics, health workers, policymakers, journalists and development specialists with expertise in gender issues to rank the 19 countries of the G20 in terms of the overall best and worst to be a woman.
They also ranked countries in six categories: quality of health, freedom from violence, participation in politics, work place opportunities, access to resources such as education and property rights and freedom from trafficking and slavery. (Source: Reuters.com)
Canada was voted the number one country for women. As the European Union was not included in the poll we have been awarded the 20th position, else with competition from countries like Finland and Sweden we would have been pushed to a negative position.
No need to wax eloquent about "a country that reveres its women, worships them as Goddesses" etc...the ground reality as has been getting increasingly clear with the attacks on the woman (dowry, acid attacks, honour killings, rapes) and the girl child (foeticide, infanticide, child marriage, rapes) and prostitution regardless of their age, coupled with the lack of education, empowerment etc...is very very grim....
There is no other way to end this ramble but to say - disgusting and shameful....
3 comments:
Completely with you. Disgusting and SHAMEFUL.
:'(
Namaskar,
I saw and read this post yesterday.
More than 24 hours have gone by.
I've been thinking a lot.
I have discussed with others on this topic.
Sad to say I haven't found right words to comment on this post.
Even though the situation is such, let me remind ourselves what 'The Mahatma' said, and that being " You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.".
All I can say in this case, is that the truth is too hard to bear, but one must not lose hope, that a change will come, and we must try to bring in that change only then can we justify ourselves worthy of our existence.
God bless you with the strength to be our torch and us to be the swords that fight for justice.
Vande Mataram
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