Afghanistan and Iraq: The Most Insecure Countries for Women in 2023

Afghanistan is considered an unsafe, unjust, and uninclusive country for women. This assessment is based on the findings of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security and the PRIO Centre on Gender, Peace, and Security, using the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) index.

Afghanistan scored only 0.286 out of a possible 1 point on this index. This is three times lower than Denmark, which ranked first as the safest, fairest, and most inclusive country for women, with a score of 0.932.

Afghanistan received the lowest scores across various indicators, including justice, where it scored only 0.37. The research team attributed this low score to the oppressive Taliban regime, which severely restricts women's ability to access justice. In April 2023, the Taliban banned female aid workers, leading to women facing harassment, intimidation, and detention.

Yemen followed with a score of 0.287, followed by the Central African Republic at 0.378.

Next were the Democratic Republic of Congo (0.384) and South Sudan (0.388).

Other countries with low scores include Burundi, Syria, Eswatini, Somalia, and Iraq, as shown in the accompanying graph.

The research team stated that the world is currently grappling with a climate emergency, the rise of authoritarian and anti-democratic forces, mass forced displacement, armed conflict, and the various impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

These increasingly complex and layered crises, the team said, are weakening women's status and threatening to reverse progress made over several decades.

"The WPS Index reinforces the priority of investing in women as crucial to protecting the security and well-being of everyone. Women's well-being and national well-being go hand in hand," the research team stated in a report cited on Sunday, March 24, 2024.

The WPS Index includes 13 indicators of women's status classified into three dimensions: inclusion (economic, social, political); justice (formal and informal discrimination); and security (at the individual, community, and societal levels). A total of 177 countries were studied.

The performance assessment data comes from the latest and reputable sources such as the UN, the World Bank, the Gallup World Poll, and many more.

The following are the countries with the lowest WPS Index scores in the world in 2023:

* Afghanistan: 0.286 points
* Yemen: 0.287 points
* Central African Republic: 0.378 points
* Democratic Republic of Congo: 0.384 points
* South Sudan: 0.388 points
* Burundi: 0.394 points
* Syria: 0.407 points
* Eswatini: 0.415 points
* Somalia: 0.417 points
* Iraq: 0.424 points.