The Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) is an innovative measure of underlying discrimination against women for over 100 developing countries, developed by the OECD’s Development Centre. While other indices measure gender inequalities in outcomes such as education and employment, the SIGI helps policy-makers and researchers understand what drives these outcomes. The SIGI captures and quantifies discriminatory social institutions – these include among others, early marriage, discriminatory inheritance practices, violence against women, son bias, restrictions on access to public space and restricted access to productive resources. As a composite index made up of 14 variables, SIGI and its sub-indices provide tools to compare the level of underlying discrimination against women.

The 2012 Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) shows that countries have made promising progress in tackling discriminatory social institutions in some areas. For countries scored in the 2012 SIGI:

• The average prevalence of early marriage across countries has decreased to 17% in 2012 from 21% in 2009.
• The number of countries with specific legislation to combat domestic violence has more than doubled from 21 in 2009 to 53 in 2012.
• 23 out of the 35 countries where missing women was identified as a concern in 2009 have shown improvement in 2012.
• 29 countries have quotas to promote women’s political participation at both national and sub-national levels.

Despite positive steps, pervasive and persistent social institutions continue to limit women and girls’ horizons in all regions ranked in the 2012 SIGI.

• 86 out of 121 countries scored in the 2012 SIGI have discriminatory inheritance laws or practices.
• Women’s reproductive autonomy is restricted: on average, 1 in 5 women has an unmet need for family planning.
• Despite the introduction of laws, attitudes that normalise violence against women persist. On average, for the countries scored in the SIGI, around 1 in 2 women believe domestic violence is justified in certain circumstances.
• On average, women hold only 15% of land titles for countries where data is available.

Latin America and the Caribbean shows the lowest level of overall discrimination against women in the 2012 SIGI rankings. South Asia has improved its position from the lowest ranked region in 2009 to the fourth ranked region in 2012.This is largely due to the introduction of laws to combat violence against women, decline in early marriage, introduction of quotas to promote women’s political participation and improvement in son bias for some countries in the region. Sub-Saharan Africa shows the highest level of discrimination. Europe and Central Asia has moved from the top ranking region in the 2009 SIGI to the third ranked region in the 2012 edition. This is largely due to a growing problem of son bias in some parts of the region and the absence of quotas to promote women’s equal political participation.

                                  www.genderindex.org

Composition of 2012 SIGI:

• Discriminatory Family Code: legal age of marriage, early marriage, prenatal authority, inheritance
• Restricted Physical Integrity: Violence against women (laws, attitudes and prevalence), female genital mutilation, reproductive integrity
• Son Bias: missing women, fertility preferences
• Restricted Resources and Entitlements: access to land, property, credit
• Restricted Civil Liberties: Access to public space, political voice

Policies can change discriminatory social institutions:

Top-ranking countries have addressed discriminatory social institutions by ensuring  gender equality in the family, land and property rights, introducing measures to improve women’s access to credit, introducing and implementing strong laws and  programmes to combat violence against women, ensuring women’s access to reproductive health services, removing restrictions on women’s access to public space and introducing laws to promote women’s political participation at a national or sub-national level. A three-pronged approach to tackling discriminatory social institutions is required.

1. Legal reform

• Harmonisation, full implementation and enforcement of laws to guarantee equality and protection from harmful practices and violence
• Provision of judicial training, legal services, awareness-raising and legal literacy programmes

2. Community mobilisation and empowerment

• Public awareness and community mobilisation activities to tackle attitudes and shift norms
• Support networks and skills development to address knowledge gaps and attitudes

3. Economic support and incentives

• Cash transfers and stipends to change practices
• Income-generating support and opportunities to remove economic constraint

Source: www.genderindex.org

Further reading: A. Luci Greulich, J. Jütting, C. Morrisson (2012): “Why do so many women end up in bad jobs? A cross country assessment for developing countries.” The European Journal of Development Research Vol 24 N°4, September 2012.

That’s why women’s activists have marked November 25 as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women (since 1981). The UN and other organisations invites governments, international organizations and NGOs to organize activities designed to raise public awareness of the problem on that day each year.

                        Image source: Council of Europe

An UN publication sums up the following information about Violence Against Women:

The Situation:

Violence against women takes many forms – physical, sexual, psychological and economic. These forms of violence are interrelated and affect women from before birth to old age. Some types of violence, such as trafficking, cross national boundaries. Women who experience violence suffer a range of health problems and their ability to participate in public life is diminished. Violence against women harms families and communities across generations and reinforces other violence prevalent in society. Violence against women also impoverishes women, their families, communities and nations. Violence against women is not confined to a specific culture, region or country, or to particular groups of women
within a society. The roots of violence against women lie in persistent discrimination against women. Up to 70 per cent of women experience violence in their lifetime.

Violence by an intimate partner

The most common form of violence experienced by women globally is physical violence inflicted by an intimate partner, with women beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused. A World Health Organization (WHO) study in 11 countries found that the percentage of women who had been subjected to sexual violence by an intimate partner ranged from 6 per cent in Japan to 59 per cent in Ethiopia. Several global surveys suggest that half of all women who die from homicide are killed by their current or former husbands or partners. In Australia, Canada, Israel, South Africa and the United States, 40 to 70 per cent of female murder victims were killed by their partners, according to the World Health Organization. In Colombia, one woman is reportedly killed by her partner or former partner every six days. Psychological or emotional violence by intimate partners is also widespread.

Sexual violence

It is estimated that, worldwide, one in five women will become a victim of rape or attempted rape in her lifetime. The practice of early marriage – a form of sexual violence – is common worldwide, especially in Africa and South Asia.Young girls are often forced into the marriage and into sexual relations, causing health risks, including exposure to HIV/AIDS, and limiting their attendance in school. One effect of sexual abuse is traumatic gynecologic fistula: an injury resulting from severe tearing of the vaginal tissues, rendering the woman incontinent and socially undesirable.

Sexual violence in conflict

Sexual violence in conflict is a serious, present-day atrocity affecting millions of people, primarily women and girls. It is frequently a conscious strategy employed on a large scale by armed groups to humiliate opponents, terrify individuals and destroy societies. Women and girls may also be subjected to sexual exploitation by those mandated to protect them. Women as old as grandmothers and as young as toddlers have routinely suffered violent sexual abuse at the hands of military and rebel forces. Rape has long been used as a tactic of war, with violence against women during or after armed conflicts reported in every international or non-international war-zone. In the Democratic Republic of Congo approximately 1,100
rapes are being reported each month, with an average of 36 women and girls raped every day. It is believed that over 200,000 women have suffered from sexual violence in that country since armed conflict began. The rape and sexual violation of women and girls is pervasive in the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan. Between 250,000 and 500,000 women were raped during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Sexual violence was a characterizing feature of the 14- year long civil war in Liberia. During the conflict in Bosnia in the early 1990s, between 20,000 and 50,000 women were raped.

Violence and HIV/AIDS

Women’s inability to negotiate safe sex and refuse unwanted sex is closely linked to the high prevalence of HIV/AIDS. Unwanted sex results in a higher risk of abrasion and bleeding and easier transmission of the virus. Women who are beaten by their partners are 48 per cent more likely to be infected with HIV/AIDS. Young women are particularly vulnerable to coerced sex and are increasingly being infected with HIV/AIDS. Over half of new HIV infections worldwide are occurring among young people between the ages of 15 and 24, and more than 60 per cent of HIV-positive youth in this age bracket are female.

Female Genital Mutilation/Genital Cutting

Female Genital Mutilation/Genital Cutting (FGM/C) refers to several types of traditional cutting operations performed on women and girls. It is estimated that more than 130 million girls and women alive today have undergone FGM/C, mainly in Africa and some Middle Eastern countries. 2 million girls a year are thought to be at risk of genital mutilation.

Dowry murder

Dowry murder is a brutal practice where a woman is killed by her husband or in-laws because her family cannot meet their demands for dowry — a payment made to a woman’s in-laws upon her marriage as a gift to her new family. While dowries or similar payments are prevalent worldwide, dowry murder occurs predominantly in South Asia.

“Honour killing”

In many societies, rape victims, women suspected of engaging in premarital sex, and women accused of adultery have been murdered by their relatives because the violation of a woman’s chastity is viewed as an affront to the family’s honour. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates that the annual worldwide number of so-called “honour killing” victims may be as high as 5,000 women.

Trafficking in persons

Between 500,000 to 2 million people are trafficked annually into situations including prostitution, forced labour, slavery or servitude, according to estimates. Women and girls account for about 80 per cent of the detected victims.

Violence during pregnancy

Violence before and during pregnancy has serious health consequences for both mother and child. It leads to highrisk pregnancies and pregnancy-related problems, including miscarriage, pre-term labour and low birth weight. Female infanticide, prenatal sex selection and systematic neglect of girls are widespread in South and East Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East.

Discrimination and violence

Many women face multiple forms of discrimination and increased risk of violence. Indigenous women in Canada are five times more likely than other women of the same age to die as the result ofviolence.  In Europe, North America and Australia, over half of women with disabilities have experienced physical abuse, compared to one-third of non-disabled women.

Cost and Consequences

The costs of violence against women are extremely high. They include the direct costs of services to treat and support abused women and their children and to bring perpetrators to justice. The indirect costs include lost employment and productivity, and the costs in human pain and suffering. The cost of intimate partner violence in the United States alone exceeds $5.8 billion per year: $4.1 billion is for direct medical and health care services, while productivity losses account for nearly $1.8 billion. A 2004 study in the United Kingdom estimated the total direct and indirect costs of domestic violence, including pain and suffering, to be £23 billion per year or £440 per person.

Source:  UN

Related article on this blog: Economic crisis and domestic violence: Is money running out to protect women?