Oppression of Women

Canada and the World

Current Events with a Canadian Perspective

Last update

16 June 2011

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Oppression of

Women in many Countries

While women in advanced democratic societies can celebrate many victories on the march to equality, their sisters elsewhere suffer terrible oppression

To be born a woman in Saudi Arabia is to be almost completely under the control of men. A Human Rights Watch report (July 8, 2009) says Saudi law “requires Saudi women to obtain permission from male guardians (fathers, husbands, brothers, or male children) before they can carry out a host of day-to-day activities, such as education, employment, travel, opening a bank account, or receiving medical care.”

The Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia adds that women in Saudi Arabia “are excluded from all decision-making processes, forbidden to drive, and are strictly segregated from men in restaurants, hospital waiting rooms, buses (where women ride in the back) and, in some cases, within their own homes.”

Gender Inequality is Rampant

In many countries in Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East women face worse oppression than those in Saudi Arabia:

In India, says BBC News, “…government statistics show that husbands and in-laws killed nearly 7,000 women in 2001 over inadequate dowry payments.” The practice, named after the murder method used, is known as “bride burning.”
On August 14, 2008, the CBS program 60 Minutes reported that, “In the last ten years in Congo, hundreds of thousands of women have been raped, most of them gang raped.” Sexual violence has become a war tactic as a way of subduing civilians.
Writing in The Guardian (May 13, 2002), John Gittings says “An alarming rise in the sex ratio of newborn infants in China suggests that increasing numbers of female fetuses are being aborted by parents intent on having a male child.” Normally, 106 males are born for every 100 females; in China the ratio is 116 to 100. The group Gendercide Watch says there are no reliable statistics on how many girls are killed but “a minimum estimate would place the casualties in the hundreds of thousands.”
In a broad swath of African countries from Senegal in the west to Tanzania in the east, as many as two million girls suffer genital mutilation every year. The World Health Organization terms the practice a reflection of “deep-rooted inequality between the sexes, and constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against women. It is nearly always carried out on minors and is a violation of the rights of children.”
iAbolish, an American anti-slavery group states, “Approximately 35,000 individuals live as sex slaves in Thailand today. Sold or lured to big cities, these girls…are forced - under the threat of violence and with no freedom to leave the brothel - to provide sex for any and all paying customers. Sex tourism in Thailand is a growing industry, perpetuating the demand for sex slaves.”
According to the United Nations the ancient tradition of “compensation marriages” continues today in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and parts of the Middle East. Underage girls are handed over to settle disputes between clans and families. “The number of girls and young women victimized by this custom is not known, but investigators consider it be in the tens of thousands.”

Poverty Concentrated among Women

For those that escape the gender-based violence and degradation, and for many who don’t, there is the added burden of crushing poverty.

Oxfam Canada reports that, “Of the 1.3 billion people who live in extreme poverty worldwide, 70 percent are women and girls. Systematic gender discrimination—the denial of women’s basic human rights—is a major cause of poverty.” The definition of extreme poverty is an income of less than one dollar a day.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has studied the issue in Africa, where the problem is chronic.

Many families are headed by women only because men migrate elsewhere in search of work, are killed in civil conflicts, or just abandon their wives and children.

IFAD says that female-headed households have less “access to land, livestock, other assets, credit, education, health care, and extension services” than those headed by men. “For instance, in Zimbabwe, female-headed households have 30-50 percent smaller landholdings than male-headed households.”

Image credits

Walter Callens

The Advocacy Project

Sources

“Saudi Arabia: Women’s Rights Promises Broken.” Human Rights Watch, July 8, 2009

“India’s Dowry Deaths.” Lucy Ash, BBC News, July 13, 2003.

“War against Women.” CBS News, 60 Minutes, August 17, 2008.

“Case Study: Female Infanticide.” Gendercide Watch.

“Female Genital Mutilation.” World Health Organization, February 2010.

“Virtual Slavery: The Practice of Compensation Marriages.” United Nations.

“The Issue of Poverty among Female-headed Households in Africa.” International Fund for Agricultural Development.

DEADLY AFGHANISTAN

Afghanistan is the most dangerous country in the world for women. A combination of violence, poor health care, and extreme poverty makes life difficult for women.

This is the finding of a poll carried out by TrustLaw, a Thomson Reuters Foundation Service. The results were released in June 2011.

Close behind Afghanistan comes Congo where women suffer horrific gang rapes that are used as a tactic by combatants in that country’s long civil war.

In a news release TrustLaw notes that “Pakistan, India and Somalia ranked third, fourth and fifth, respectively, in the global survey of perceptions of threats…”

The organization quotes Clementina Cantoni, a European Commission human rights worker, on the situation in Afghanistan: “Ongoing conflict, NATO air strikes, and cultural practices combined to make Afghanistan a very dangerous place for women.

“In addition, women who do attempt to speak out or take on public roles that challenge ingrained gender stereotypes of what’s acceptable for women to do or not, such as working as policewomen or news broadcasters, are often intimidated or killed.”

“Eight out of ten women workers are considered to be in vulnerable employment in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, with global economic changes taking a huge toll on their livelihoods.”

United Nations Development Fund for Women