In the 2023/24 Women, Peace, and Security Index, which has been published for the fourth time since 2017, Turkey ranked 99th out of 177 countries. Turkey, classified among the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia, ranks at the bottom regionally in the categories of education and community safety.
The 2023/24 Women, Peace, and Security Index, published for the fourth time since 2017, has scored 177 countries in terms of the status of women.
The results highlight serious inequalities in the status of women worldwide. The WPS Index, in its entirety, reminds us that full inclusivity, justice, and security are crucial in supporting and sustaining a universal vision for women’s peace and security.
Turkey ranks 99th out of 177 countries in this index. Classified among the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Turkey ranks last in the categories of education and community safety among these countries.
The 5 significant findings in this year’s Index are as follows:
1) Denmark ranks first this year, scoring more than three times higher than Afghanistan at the bottom. At the regional and country group level, Developed Countries and Central & Eastern Europe & Central Asia perform best on average. Eight of the bottom dozen are from Sub-Saharan Africa. Conflict and instability exacerbate gender divisions, with eleven of the bottom dozen countries classified as Fragile States. Since the first WPS Index in 2017, Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Iraq, Syria, and Yemen have remained among the bottom dozen ranked nations.
Within regions, the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) displays the widest variation, with the UAE ranking 22nd and Yemen ranking 176th. Countries in this group perform comparatively worse within the justice dimension, and often struggle to provide —— and construct —— equitable, supportive legal frameworks for women. Overall, MENA reports the highest levels of legal discrimination and access to justice, as well as the lowest rates of women’s employment and political representation in the world, signaling a long journey towards obtaining true gender equity.
2) The WPS Index is strongly correlated with several other indices that rank countries in terms of global development, climate change preparedness, resilience, and peace. For example, the 2023 Index is highly correlated with the Fund for Peace’s State Resilience Index, signifying that countries where women prosper tend to have lower risk of conflict or crisis. The WPS Index is also strongly associated with the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative (ND-GAIN) Index, which measures countries’ preparedness to respond to the impacts of climate change. Findings show that countries where women are doing well tend to be less vulnerable to environmental threats, and more focused on prioritizing climate solutions. These correlations conclude that women must be central figures in addressing and overcoming conflict and crisis, and that calling for women’s peace and security is critical in strengthening broader societies.
3) Within country borders, several nations display variation across different measures of women’s status. Those that excel in terms of women’s physical safety may fall short in supporting their access to education, or vice versa. For example, Vietnam ranks among the top 25 countries globally within the security dimension, but falls to the bottom 25 in terms of justice. These observations signify the complexity of women’s rights, and remind us that progress within countries is neither uniform nor linear. All countries have room for improvement, and their overall performance only captures a snapshot of each individual context. The Index’s multidimensional framework provides a foundation for policymakers to identify where women are facing particular disadvantages through understanding the state of inclusion, justice, and security, both separately and together.
4) Political violence against women is a growing phenomenon worldwide, and serves to deter, silence, and prevent women from meaningfully participating in civic spaces and leadership roles. Women politicians, journalists, activists, and civilians alike face threats of attack on their person and character, which bolsters democratic backsliding and threats to national security. Forms of political violence range from physical violence—including sexual and non-sexual assaults—to technology-facilitated gender based violence, which manifests in digital attacks and misinformation campaigns to undermine prominent women’s platforms or silence their voices.
Reflecting on political violence’s threat to women, peace and security, this year’s Index introduces a new Political Violence Targeting Women (PVTW) indicator within the security dimension. Using data from the The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), this indicator measures the number of PVTW events per 100,000 women in each country. Data revealed that Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Myanmar had the most PVTW events in 2022. On the regional level, Fragile States displayed the highest PVTW event count at 1,320 events, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean (with 1,212), and Sub-Saharan Africa (with 924). These findings present the common co-presence of social instability and regional conflict alongside gendered insecurity, reinforcing the precedence of women’s safety before their ability to freely and equally participate.
5) The third chapter of this year’s Index spotlights the experiences of women in conflict-ridden states, and delves deeper into subnational analyses of Colombia and Ethiopia. Recognizing that 2022 was the deadliest year in terms of battle deaths from armed conflict since 1994, the chapter broadly focuses on the effects of political and social instability on the deterioration of women’s rights. Ultimately, the findings show that all 20 bottom-ranking countries experienced armed conflict between 2021 and 2022. In most of these, more than half of the female population live within 50 kilometers to conflict events, and overall, roughly 600 million women worldwide live in close proximity to armed conflict. Regional and group-level disparities are distinct, and the share of women at risk ranges from less than one percent in Developed Countries to 61 percent in Fragile States. Latin America and the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa have the second and third highest levels at 44 and 37 percent, respectively.
You can read the full report here.
Source: Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security