From Canada to India: The 19 Best and Worst Places to be a Woman

The Thomson Reuters Foundation’s Trust Law, which serves as a legal news service for the foundation, has just launched a global poll evaluating the top 20 best and worst countries to be a woman out of G20 countries. The survey was conducted by experts who based their evaluations of the G20 countries on six categories: women’s quality of health, freedom from violence, participation in politics, workplace opportunities, access to resources, and freedom of trafficking and slavery. The poll concluded that Canada, due to its extensive policies that promote gender equality, access to health care, along with protective safeguards against violence, is the best place to be a woman in the G20 countries. India, due to high rates of infanticide, child marriage, and slavery, was deemed the worst country to live in as a woman. Monique Villa, CEO of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, stated that:

“For too many women in too many countries, basic rights remain a luxury and even in some of the most developed economies women are often considered second citizens.”

According to Villa, this statement holds true in many countries, including Japan, Italy, and South Korea, all of which face ingrained gender discrimination in society, culture, and the workplace.

In the worst of these countries, women are exceedingly deprived of the most basic human rights. In Saudi Arabia (ranked number 18), women are not allowed to drive cars, there are no existing protective laws against domestic violence, and a man’s testimony in court is worth twice that of a woman. India ranks 19^th as the worst country to be woman, in which high maternal mortality rates, the prevalence of child marriage (44.5% of girls under the age of 18 are married annually), along with severe human rights violations such as human trafficking and sexual slavery occur regularly.

This survey pinpoints areas of the world that are in direst need, as well as highlighting the fact that further advancements are still needed in some of the most developed countries, such as France and the United States.

View the full poll coverage of this survey here.