A new study has found that Denmark is the best country to live in, while Ukraine is currently the worst place to be a woman, CGTN reports.
The latest edition of the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Index, published on Tuesday, assesses the status of women in 177 countries, comparing indicators ranging from economic participation to health and risk of violence.
In this year’s ranking, Denmark topped both the European and global rankings with a score of 0.932 out of 1, more than three times higher than Afghanistan ranked at the bottom of the list.
According to the list, 16 of the 20 best countries for women are in Europe, and all five Nordic countries are among the top seven countries in the Index.
Southern European and Balkan countries have predominantly the lowest index scores, while Northern and Central European countries tend to have higher scores. The report notes that countries where women feel good about themselves tend to be more peaceful, democratic, prosperous and better prepared to adapt to the impacts of climate change.
However, it emphasised that climate emergencies, large-scale forced displacement, armed conflict and the multiple impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are beginning to “undermine the status of women and threaten to roll back decades of progress.”
The index, created jointly by the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and the Georgetown University Women’s Institute, takes into account 13 different indicators of women’s status, including education and perceptions of security, parliamentary representation and maternal mortality, as well as legal protection and proximity to armed conflict.
The countries with the lowest index were those classified as Fragile States, where wars are ongoing or where there is particularly weak state capacity that makes their citizens vulnerable to a range of shocks.
On average in these states, one woman in five has recently experienced intimate partner violence, six women in every 10 live in close proximity to conflict, and the maternal mortality rate is approximately 540 per 100,000 live births, which is more than double the global average.
Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Syria and Yemen have made it into the top dozen countries since the first WPS Index was compiled in 2017/18, while Kosovo and Ukraine are currently at the bottom of the list in Europe.
The report also notes an increase in women’s access to financial services, from 56 per cent in 2014 to 71 per cent in the most recent data for 2021. Since financial accessibility is critical to women’s empowerment, the report points out that the growth has been driven partly by the spread of digital finance platforms that allow women to manage their money remotely and independently.
However, it is also worth noting that the spread of digital technology has fuelled the spread of political violence against women online.
The WPS Index reinforces prioritizing investment in women as essential to protecting the security and well-being of everyone in society. The well-being of women and the well-being of nations go hand in hand.
