Facts in Q&A format

An estimated 5.7 out of every 100,000 women and girls were killed in Nigeria in 2016. This internationally comparable rate for deaths from interpersonal violence is more than twice the global average of 2.6.

 

More: Five facts: Femicide in South Africa

The World Bank has data on the percentage of women aged 15 to 49 who have gone through female genital mutilation. This is defined as the “partial or total removal of the female external genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for cultural or other non-therapeutic reasons”. The bank…

World Bank data covers 53 African countries in 2017. According to these figures South African women have the highest unemployment rate at 30.45%, followed by women in Lesotho with an unemployment rate of 30.08%, Gabon with 27.44%, Libya with 27.16% and Swaziland with 27.03%.

According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, there is “no commonly agreed definition of what constitutes ‘femicide’”. It has historically been defined as the killing of women and girls because they are female. 

Collecting data on the motive for a killing can be difficult. Because of this,…

Unicef estimates that 40% of women in sub-Saharan Africa were married as children. Some of the red flag countries are Niger, the Central African Republic and Chad.

In 2020, Kenya’s female population stood at roughly 27 million.

As of 2020, some 19% of girls and women aged 15 to 49 years have undergone female genital mutilation, according to Unicef data. 

Adoption in Nigeria is not restricted to any gender or based on marital status as the law makes provision for both genders either married or unmarried. A woman who is up to 35 years old can adopt without the consent of a man as long as she is deemed fit.

The South African Police Service (SAPS) recorded 7,833 sexual assaults in 2019/20. This is a 3.7% increase from the number of offences in 2018/19 which was 7,557.

 

More: FACTSHEET: South Africa’s crime statistics for 2019/20