By Lisa Anderson
NEW YORK, June 13 (TrustLaw) – On one side of the border, a
woman can see a doctor for free and is guaranteed paid maternity
leave. On the other, most women do not qualify for free
healthcare and one in five under 65 does not have medical
insurance.
These differences and others make Canada the best country
among the world’s wealthiest nations to be a woman and keep the
United States out of the top five, according to a poll of
experts released on Wednesday by TrustLaw, a legal news service
run by Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The United States ranked sixth among the 19 countries in the
Group of 20 economies, excluding the European Union economic
grouping, in the global survey of 370 recognised gender
specialists.
Germany, Britain, Australia and France followed Canada in
that order, while India, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia polled the
worst.
Despite similarities between Canada and the United States in
education and economic opportunity, the countries are very
different in the area of gender equality, the experts said.
Canada’s constitution promotes and safeguards women’s rights
while a lack of concensus over reproductive rights in particular
erodes them in the United States, experts said.
“Canada leads the pack with its promotion of women’s access
and opportunities across various sectors of society, including
education, economic participation and healthcare,” said Sarah
Degnan Kambou, president of the International Center for
Research on Women in Washington, which took part in the survey.
The poll showed how the lack of universal health care and
the struggle over abortion rights in the United States –
important issues ahead of the November presidential election –
were key to perceptions of women’s freedoms in the country,
according to the experts polled.
Respondents came from 63 countries on five continents and
included aid professionals, academics, health workers,
policymakers, journalists and development specialists with
experience in gender issues. Representatives of faith-based
organisations were also surveyed.
While a pregnant woman in Canada is guaranteed 15 weeks paid
maternity leave, she receives no federally guaranteed time off
with pay in the United States. If the expectant mother is one of
the 16 percent of American women under 65 with no health
insurance – according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention – she may have to forgo adequate prenatal
and postnatal care because she can’t afford it.
Canada also ranks better than the United States on maternal
mortality, reporting 12 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births
in 2008, half the number recorded in the United States,
according to the United Nations.
POLITICS, TREATIES AND RIGHTS
While women’s political representation in Canada lags behind
some G20 countries, it fares better than in the United States.
Nearly a quarter of seats in Canada’s lower house of parliament
are held by women, compared to 17 percent in the United States,
according to data from the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
“Our political participation levels, particularly in
Congress, are embarrassingly low as compared to other countries
in the G20, such as South Africa, Germany and Argentina,” said
ICRW’s Kambou. In South Africa, women hold 42 percent of seats
in parliament’s lower house.
Canada was one of the first countries to sign and ratify the
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
Against Women (CEDAW), often referred to as the international
bill of rights for women.
The United States is the only democracy and the only G20
country that has yet to ratify CEDAW, primarily due to concerns
of religious and social conservatives that it will undermine
what they call “traditional family values”.
Neither Canada nor the United States has managed to resolve
the gender pay gap.
The status of reproductive rights – considered a basic human
right by many of the experts polled – continues to be a big
issue for women in the United States, survey respondents said.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, which promotes sexual
and reproductive rights, U.S. legislators enacted 92 provisions
that restricted access to abortion in 24 states in 2011. So far
this year, nine provisions that restrict access to abortion have
been enacted at state level.
Women’s control over reproductive health was one of the
issues experts were asked to consider when ranking the G20
countries as part of a broad health category that also included
maternal mortality, access to healthcare, HIV/AIDS and access to
adequate nutrition.
About a third of U.S. women said they believe there is a
broad effort to curtail access to choices and services like
contraception, family planning and abortion, a recent survey by
the non-profit Kaiser Family Foundation found.
“It’s not surprising the U.S. did not make the top 5 ‘best’
countries, given the serious violations of women’s rights that
continue to occur,” said Yasmeen Hassan, Global Director of
Equality Now.
Aside from quality of health, the TrustLaw survey asked
respondents to rank G20 countries in terms of the overall best
and worst places for women and in the categories of freedom from
violence, participation in politics, workplace opportunities,
access to resources like education and property rights and
freedom from trafficking and slavery.
(For full coverage of the poll visit http://g20women.trust.org)
(TrustLaw is a free legal news site run by Thomson Reuters
Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters. Visit http://trust.org/trustlaw.
For more information on the TrustWomen Conference visit http://trustwomenconf.com)
HOW THEY RANK
Best and worst G20 countries for women
1. Canada
2. Germany
3. Britain
4. Australia
5. France
6. United States
7. Japan
8. Italy
9. Argentina
10. South Korea
11. Brazil
12. Turkey
13. Russia
14. China
15. Mexico
16. South Africa
17. Indonesia
18. Saudi Arabia
19. India
(Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)
