Nigeria ranks 16th worst country out of 177 nations of the world in terms of the status of women, according to the 2023 Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Index report.
The WPS Index report, which was launched Monday in New York, captures 13 indicators including education, employment, laws and organised violence, classified under three dimensions: inclusion, justice and security.
According to the report reviewed by PREMIUM TIMES, all the bottom 20 countries, including Nigeria, have experienced armed conflicts between 2021 and 2022, noting that 2022 is the deadliest year on record for conflict-related deaths since the Rwandan genocide in 1994.
Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden, Finland and Iceland lead the 2023 rankings as the top five countries to live as a woman, while Afghanistan, Yemen, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Sudan are the worst five countries on the index.
The index was published by the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security (GIWPS) and the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).
In the 2023 index, Nigeria ranked 162 out of 177 countries in terms of women’s inclusion, justice, and security a decline from the 2021/22 edition where Nigeria ranked 130 of 170 countries.
Meanwhile, the new Index introduced a new Political Violence Targeting Women (PVTW) indicator within the security dimension, showing that Nigeria is among the five countries with the most PVTW events in 2022.
Other countries are Mexico, Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Myanmar.
In Nigeria, women’s representation in the National Assembly fell by 19 per cent in 2023, attributed largely to growing political violence against women in the country that inhibited women’s candidacy.
The report also attributed the decline in women’s representation in the National Assembly in 2023 to growing political violence against women in Nigeria.
Credit: premiumtimesng.com
