Canada Best Country To Be A Woman, India Worst

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A young woman has her hair braided by her mother in Chennai, India in this 2011 file photo. A Thomson Reuters Foundation survey, polling 370 gender specialists, found Canada to be the best place to be a woman amongst G20 nations, excluding the European Union economic grouping.

LONDON—Policies that promote gender equality, safeguards against violence and exploitation and access to healthcare make Canada the best place to be a woman among the world’s biggest economies, a global poll of experts showed on Wednesday.

Infanticide, child marriage and slavery make India the worst, the same poll concluded.

Germany, Britain, Australia and France rounded out the top five countries out of the Group of 20 in a perceptions poll of 370 gender specialists conducted by TrustLaw, a legal news service run by the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The United States came in sixth but polarized opinion due to concerns about reproductive rights and affordable healthcare.

At the other end of the scale, Saudi Arabia — where women are well educated but are banned from driving and only won the right to vote in 2011 — polled second-worst after India, followed by Indonesia, South Africa and Mexico.

“India is incredibly poor, Saudi Arabia is very rich. But there is a commonality and that is that unless you have some special access to privilege, you have a very different future, depending on whether you have an extra X chromosome, or a Y chromosome,” said Nicholas Kristof, journalist and co-author of “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide,” commenting on the poll results.

The poll, released ahead of a summit of G20 heads of state to be held in Mexico June 18-19, showed the reality for many women in many countries remains grim despite the introduction of laws and treaties on women’s rights, experts said.

“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 labour,” said Gulshun Rehman, health programme development adviser at Save the Children 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.”

Canada was perceived to be getting most things right in protecting women’s well-being and basic freedoms.

“While we have much more to do, women have access to healthcare, we place a premium on education, which is the first step toward economic independence and we have laws that protect girls and women and don’t allow for child marriage,” said Farah Mohamed, president and CEO of the Canada-based G(irls) 20 Summit, which organized a youth gathering that took place in Mexico in May, ahead of the G20 leaders’ meeting.

Activists were not surprised by the experts’ favourable view of Canada, however.

“Having an understanding of Canadian culture and tracking the work they’re doing around violence against women and gender equality, I believe that Canada really has been emerging as a model for what most countries should aspire to for a long time,” said Jimmie Briggs, journalist, author and founder of the Man Up Campaign that works to engage youth to stop violence against women and girls.

HOW THEY RANK 1. Canada 2. Germany 3. Britain 4. Australia 5. France 6. United States 7. Japan 8. Italy 9. Argentina 10. South Korea 11. Brazil 12. Turkey 13. Russia 14. China 15. Mexico 16. South Africa 17. Indonesia 18. Saudi Arabia 19. India

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