It Ain't Easy Being Pink
Foreign Policy releases a gimmicky but interesting list of the world's worst places to be a woman. For the most part, it could double as a list of the worst places to be a person, with an extra bonus helping of death in childbirth and disdain from the courts.
The list is done by region, with Haiti topping the Americas:
Share of women in National Assembly: 5 percent
Female-to-male income ratio: 52:100
Female literacy rate: 57 percent
In the slums around Port-au-Prince, organized gang rape is a fact of life for many Haitian women. Nearly half the young women and girls in the capital's Cite Soleil shantytown have been raped or sexually assaulted, according to a 2006 U.N. report. Nongovernmental organizations say the problem isn't taken seriously because many Haitians, including members of the police and judicial system, consider nonconsensual sex as rape only if the victim was a virgin. In fact, rape wasn't even categorized as a criminal offense until 2005. In addition, if a husband finds his wife engaging in adultery in his home, the criminal code excuses him if he kills her; if a wife kills her husband under the same circumstances, she isn't excused.
Read the rest of the list, here.