South Asia is one of the worst places in the world to be female
India’s bachelor leader, Narendra Modi,
struggles with the opposite sex. For a man usually so eloquent, Mr Modi
occasionally lands his sandalled foot in his mouth: on June 7th he made an
especially crass comment during an otherwise successful visit to Bangladesh,
praising his host, Sheikh Hasina, the prime minister, for being tough on
terrorism “despite being a woman”. Critics back home accused Mr Modi of having
retrograde views, typical of those who revere the country as “Mother India” but
who treat women atrociously. Yet such attitudes are widely shared, not just in
India but across South Asia. The whole region fails to grant women equal
respect or opportunities.
That may seem odd, given how prominent a
role women play in South Asian politics. China, Japan, Russia and many other
countries have failed to produce a female prime minister or president. South
Asia has had several. If Hillary Clinton is elected next year to lead the
world’s most powerful democracy, it will be a full half-century after Indira
Gandhi first led the world’s largest one. Sri Lanka’s Sirimavo Bandaranaike
pipped her to become the world’s first female head of government, in 1960. In
that country, uniquely, both a mother and her daughter have held the highest
political office. In the late 1990s Chandrika Kumaratunga even served as
president at the same time as her ageing mother, Mrs Bandaranaike, completed a
third, mostly ceremonial, term as prime minister.
Women prosper at the top of South Asian
democracies partly because they are propelled by dynasties that long formed the
core of political parties. In Bangladesh the two battling begums have ensured
that no other politician gets a look-in.
But if South Asia is one of the best places
on Earth for elite women who aspire to a political career, it is one of the
worst places to be an ordinary woman. The occasional chauvinism faced by
females at the top pales beside the burdens heaped on those at the bottom.
South Asian women fare terribly in a “Mothers’ Index” put together in May by
Save the Children, a British charity. It ranks 179 countries according to the
well-being of their women, using indicators such as maternal mortality, the
survival of young children and women’s involvement in politics. Subcontinental
nations come out the worst in Asia. Women in India and Pakistan (ranked 140th
and 149th) have a quality of life only a little brighter than those in
Afghanistan (152nd) and far behind those in China (61st), who are far more
likely to survive childbirth, or see their offspring spend a long time in
school.
Let
money do the talking
Yet South
Asia will need to spend a lot more on women in order to see further
improvements. The region devotes barely 1% of GDP to public health (China
spends 3.1%).This puts a heavy burden on those who give
birth and take most responsibility for child care.
The resources spent on women in South Asia
are shared more unevenly than in most places. Among the richest quintile in
Delhi (it is a similar story in Dhaka and elsewhere), women can enjoy maternal
and other care close to first-world standards. By contrast the poorest quintile
in the same cities, especially in slums, endure conditions as bad—or worse—than
in far poorer villages: in Delhi only 19% of such women have someone skilled
present when they give birth. Barely half of their children have had a measles
jab and nearly three-fifths are stunted. Reducing such inequality would be one
way to make existing resources go further in South Asia. But that is likely to
happen no quicker than changing old-fashioned attitudes to women.
Source: The Economist (Asia)
Posts
