Facts about women in Africa

Gender and violence against women and girls and child protection issues

• Data shows that at least one in every three woman is a survivor of some form of gender-based violence, most often by someone in her own family. [1999 Johns Hopkins global report]
• Girls between 13 and 18 years of age constitute the largest group in the sex industry. It is estimated that around 500,000 girls below 18 are victims of trafficking each year.
• Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) affects l30 million girls and women globally and places 2 million at risk annually. The prevalence of FGM remained stable at levels above 90 per cent in many countries during the last decade, with little improvement over the years.
• UNICEF supports strengthening knowledge and understanding of gender violence and abuse in many countries and addresses the need for reform of legal systems and policies.
• In some cultures the preference for boy children results in pre-natal sex selection and infanticide of girls. In India, for example, there are 933 Indian women for every l,000 men, resulting in 40 million ‘missing’ women.

Gender and the Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) and other health issues

1,400 women die every day from pregnancy-related causes, 99 per cent of them in developing countries.

• In Sub-Saharan Africa, a woman has a one in three chance of dying in child birth. In industrialized countries, the risk is 1 in 4,085.
• Direct obstetric deaths account for about 75 per cent of all maternal deaths in developing countries

Emergencies

• More than 80 per cent of the world’s 35 million refugees and displaced people are women and children.
• Emergencies puts women at risk of extreme sexual violence and abuse. In Rwanda, for example, 2,000 women, many of whom were survivors of rape, tested positive for HIV during the five years following the 1994 genocide