Nigeria is the ninth most dangerous country for women according to a new report by the Thomson Reuters Foundation poll of 548 experts on women’s issues released on Tuesday.
Nigeria made the list alongside India, which tops the list, DR Congo, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Somalia, no thanks to poor ratings in cases of sexual violence, cultural practices, and human trafficking.
Other countries polled to have bad records in the treatment of women included the U.S.A, which came last on the list, Syria, Pakistan, and Yemen.
Between March 26 and May 4, 2018, the Thomson Reuters Foundation surveyed 548 experts on women’s issues across the globe, including academics, health workers, policy-makers, and NGO workers.
The respondents were asked to consider the following parameters: health care, cultural practices, discrimination, sexual violence, non-sexual violence, and human trafficking.
While Nigeria didn’t rank in healthcare, discrimination, and non-sexual violence, Nigeria ranked sixth for (cultural) practices that were harmful to women, like acid attacks, female genital mutilation, child marriage, forced marriage, stoning, physical abuse or mutilation as a form of punishment/retribution and female infanticide.
In cases of sexual violence, Nigeria is ranked fourth on the poll, with examples of rape as a weapon of war, domestic rape, rape by a stranger, the lack of access to justice in rape cases, sexual harassment and coercion into sex as a form of corruption cited.
Nigeria is also ranked fourth position on the poll in matters of human trafficking.
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