Afghanistan most dangerous place for women

World Note

With U.S. war costs in Afghanistan exceeding $425 billion, that country has become the world’s most dangerous country for women, a new Thomson Reuters Foundation poll says.

Over 200 of the world’s “gender experts” – aid professionals, academics, health workers, policymakers, journalists and development specialists – were asked to rank countries according to six risk factors: “health threats, sexual violence, non-sexual violence, cultural or religious factors, lack of access to resources and trafficking.”

The survey placed Afghan women at the bottom in three categories: lack of health care, non-sexual violence and diminished economic resources. Al Jazeera reports Afghan women experience “violence, dismal healthcare and brutal poverty.”

One in 11 women die in childbirth and 87 percent are illiterate.

Photo: United Nations Photo // CC 2.0