by Charles Wakim | Apr 15, 2022 | Visualization
Sustainable development goals are set by the United Nations for countries to reach by 2030. And as you’re getting closer and closer to the deadline, I decided to dig deeper into it and check the WDI dataset to see where we stand right now.
One particular goal I looked after, since it’s the easiest to achieve, is gender equality, the fifth goal set by the UN (SDG 5.5.2).
One way to gauge the progress made by the countries in order to reach these goals was so take a look at women’s employment share in senior and middle management. Precisely in the European Union (EU), a rather advanced community when it comes to human rights.
Surprisingly enough, the EU, a utopia of ours (us, Middle Eastern), is not as perfect as we might think. The birthplace of human rights, the nest of gender equality and the one that found the solution for a better living still struggles in achieving perfect gender equality, especially in high positions. And even though we could always argue they’re doing better than us; they’re still not doing enough!
The EU’s average in women’s share of employment in senior and middle management falls around 30%, far away from the 50% target. Even worse, some countries like Italy have their average around 22% without any considerable increase these last few years.
Fortunately, other countries like Latvia reached records of 45% women employment in middle and high management. Even better, this particular country showed a significant increase in numbers in this area between the year 2009 and 2010 due to some regulations taken at that moment without any huge drop afterwards.
Italy could get some inspiration from the Latvian regulations created in order to increase women’s share and middle and senior management and try and fix their low numbers by applying easy to implement solutions and monitor their effectiveness over time.
Once we finish observing Italy, we could use this pilot experiment to try and generalize the process. Then try to implement it in other countries and turn gender inequality in managerial positions to history.
by Karim Ahmad | Apr 14, 2022 | Dashboard, Visualization
“The enemy doesn’t stand a chance when the victim decides to survive.” – Rae Smith
How Is It Justified?
Globally, 1 in 3 women have been subjected to partner violence, and it becomes worst when women consider this violence justifiable. Early marriage is a major reason that women think it’s okay to be beaten up by their spouses, usually, spousal age differences, power inequalities, un-continued education, and a lack of female autonomy are all common features of early age marriages. These factors have been linked to an increased risk of domestic violence and affected women’s awareness of their entitlement, self-esteem, status, and their sense of empowerment.
In most African countries and some Asian countries, women believed spousal violence is justified and that can be linked to high percentages of female adolescents out of school and early marriages in these countries.
Even globally numbers are still worrying, the average number of women who believed a husband is justified in beating up his wife is still Relatively high. With the average number of female adolescents out of school being steady over the past 22 years, marriages at a young age are still taking place and resulting in more domestic violence since spousal age difference can make women more vulnerable to health risks and social Isolation by creating power dynamics. These power dynamics can increase girls’ vulnerability to emotional, physical, and sexual abuse.
According to the WDI (World Development Indicators) data some of the justified reasons for domestic violence were:
- When women argue with the husband
- When she burns the food
- When she goes out without telling him
- When she neglects the children
- When she refuses sex with him
Taking Action!
So, you might ask, what can be done? Well, a lot actually. To start with, empowering young women are essential. This can be done through:
- Enhance girls’ access to a high-quality education
- Empower girls with information, skills, and support networks
- Provide financial assistance and incentives to young women and their families
- Educate and rally parents and the community members
Education is crucial in preventing females from marrying as adolescents. In fact, the longer a girl stays in school, the less likely she is to marry and have children before she toms 18 years old. Furthermore, education ensures that girls have the skills and information they need to find work and support their families. This can aid in breaking the cycle of poverty and preventing child marriages caused by extreme poverty and/or financial gains.
Final Recommendations
Education, economic status, and age gap are the main factors behind early marriages and domestic violence. It’s recommended to Promote education and economic opportunities for girls & Employ behavior change communication and community mobilization techniques to change social norms regarding age and marriage.
by Lara Zbibo | Apr 13, 2022 | Dashboard
Educate a girl, change the world – Malala Yousafzai
Being a young lady and living in Lebanon, we always heard stories of women being beaten up, tortured, or killed by their husbands from our family members or friends. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “Nearly half of women who die due to homicide are killed by their current or former husbands or boyfriends.” Many articles are bringing to light this issue especially with the start of the Covid19 pandemic, where we have seen a spike in that subject due to quarantine and home stays.
As generations, we have progressed in many fields, but we are still lacking a lot in that domain. How is that possible? One main reason for domestic violence’s on-going presence is that, on average, 37.75% of women around the world believe that a husband is justified in beating his wife (percentage from 2000 till 2020). That’s a huge number! Many women justify this type of violence as “normal’” and give the right to their partners/ husbands to beat them. But why are women justifying and accepting domestic violence? Why is that number this high nowadays?
To dig deep into the subject, I decided to evaluate potential factors that could affect women’s decision in justifying domestic violence such as poverty levels, literacy rates, and early marriages rates around the world. It was found that:
- On average, 75.96% of Female aged 15+ are literate around the world (from 2000 till 2020)
- On average, 3.63% of the global population live under Poverty Gap at $1.90 a day (from 2000 till 2020)
- On average, 6.78% of Female between 20 and 24 years old married at the age of 15 around the world (from 2000 till 2020)
The results showed that countries with low literacy rates in female adults have higher percentages of women who believe that a husband is justified in beating his wife (stand with domestic violence) such as Ethiopia who has a low literacy rate of 28.53% in female adults and a very high percentage of women who justify their husband’s violence (74.23%).
On the poverty level, it was found that countries with higher poverty gaps rates have higher percentages of women who stand with domestic violence such as Congo who has a poverty gap of 51.7% and a very high percentage of women who justify their husband’s violence (75.2%).
Also, when comparing that percentage with the percentage of women who married at the age of 15, it was found that countries with higher numbers of early marriages have higher percentages of women who stand with domestic violence such as Chad who has a percentage of early marriage of 29.47% (of female between 20-24 have married at the age of 15) and a very high number of women who justify their husband’s violence (67.9%).
Poverty, Literacy rates, and Early Marriages in the country affect heavily the perception of women in whether domestic violence by their partners is acceptable or not. High poverty rates increase the justification of domestic violence, low literacy rates increase the justification of domestic violence, and high early marriages rates increase the justification of domestic violence.
Increasing educational benefits in underprivileged countries would be a great initiative to increase literacy rates among women and stopping abuse among families. Introducing educational programs such as Girls’ Education by the World Bank Group which focuses on ensuring that young women receive a quality education, and raising awareness about physical abuse would also encourage the fight against domestic violence. Some countries such as Indonesia have increased the age of marriage of adolescent girls which would contribute to less early marriages, and less acceptance of violence.
by Maya El Gharib | Nov 24, 2021 | Visualization
Meet Zeina, a fresh software engineer graduate from the American University of Beirut. Thrilled and excited to embark onto a new chapter in her life, Zeina started her job-hunting journey.
However !!!
“Your profile and skills match perfectly well the requirements of the job position, but female graduates might not be able to handle the pressure of such a position given that they are sensitive and fragile”
Extremely disappointed and frustrated from what she heard from several different employers, Zeina was then aware of how gender stereotypes infuse into the workplace and lead to gender imbalance in the economic life in her country, Lebanon.
Given the above, Zeina was intrigued to investigate the phenomenon of the underrepresentation of females in the workplace in Lebanon and constructed the below storyline to explain this issue in numbers. The first two visualizations in the storyline show the following:1) The employment gap between both genders in Lebanon since the 1990s
2) One of the reasons behind the gender imbalance in the workplace: The unequal time spent by both genders on domestic and care work
Zeina was also interested in examining whether there has been any recent improvement in relation to women’s status in the Lebanese society, so she constructed a third visual showing:
3) There is a similar behavior between the Women, Business, and the Law index, which is a measure of gender laws and regulations that take into consideration women’s economic and social opportunities, and some female employment indicators, such as ratio of female to male labor force participation rate, proportion of seats held by women in national parliament, and the % of female employed in services.
You can find below Zeina’s storyline entitled “Underrepresentation of Females in the Workplace in Lebanon”
by Sara Bou Hamdan | Nov 21, 2021 | Dashboard, Visualization
“Tigist, I am really sorry for what happened to you, but honestly, it’s okay, not a big deal. I understand it’s not the first time, but you’re not the first nor the last wife to be beaten by her husband.
You can cry and react but at the end of the day these are the norms my dear and do not expect your mother, sister, or other women to defend you, this is fine to them.”
Am I surprising you? Well, welcome to Africa!
A woman’s attitude toward wife-beating is a proxy for her perception of her status. Globally, 1 in 3 women have been subjected to intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, or both at least once in their life. Many women still consider such violence as ‘justifiable’.
The majority of countries located in in Africa reported the highest average percentage of women justifying a husband beating his wife compared to other countries as shown in the map below.
What were the most justified reasons for domestic violence?
Among the 5 reasons for wife beating listed in the below dashboard, women mostly justified a husband beating his wife when she neglected the children. But, the range of these percentages is quite different when comparing Africa with other continents. There are very high violence acceptance rates across all reasons for Africa whether because she went out without telling him, argued with him, refused to have sex, or even burnt the food.
Unfortunately, Africa still has a long way to go since the gap between the percentage of women justifying wife beating and women making their own informed decisions on sexual relations, contraceptive use, and reproductive health care is significant and positive in the rest of world and has been improving over time while this is completely the opposite case in Africa.
So, what can be done?
Well, here comes the major role of education whereby education helps young people know their rights and change social norms. In this regard, providing children and youth a safe space that is free of fear, violence, and exclusion is essential.
The below dashboard validates the positive effect of primary educational attainment for females on wife beating perception through a significant negative correlation between the two factors. With higher primary educational attainment, less women tend to justify wife beating.
We can also confirm this when looking at how investment in primary educational attainment for females in Turkey improved wife beating perception over time (inverse case in Cambodia, Africa).
In conclusion, we need support from international NGOs to promote and enhance education in under-developed countries and attract funding. Direct awareness on women rights through field work and local campaigns is also key for better self – perception by women.
Finally, what happened to Tigist is not fine and we need the rest of the society to believe this as well as a start…
