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New UN figures reveal key gender gaps

Xinhua, October 21, 2015 Adjust font size:

The United Nations has a better picture of the status of women worldwide, as countries collect more and better data, Keiko Osaki Tomita, a chief UN statistician, told journalists here Tuesday, which is also World Statistics Day.

"In addition to the regular source of information that we use, like censuses, we have seen there is a growing number of household surveys collected throughout the world which allows us to disaggregate information by men and women in a very effective way," said Tomita, who is demographic and social statistics chief in the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA).

Speaking at the launch of the World's Women Report 2015, Tomita said that household surveys provide information about critical issues such as violence against women, as well as health, population, family, education and work.

One area where gender related statistics have emerged in recent years, is the area of violence against women, said Francesca Grum, chief of the UN DESA social and housing statistics section.

"Measuring violence against women is relatively new for us as statisticians," said Grum, adding that global standards on collecting statistics about violence against women have only been available for the past two years.

The report included a range of statistics on gender-based violence.

For example, two out of three victims of intimate partner and family related homicides are women, and women who have experienced intimate partner violence are 50 percent more likely to be living with HIV than those who have not.

However, Tomita acknowledged that there were some countries where it was still very difficult to collect statistics, including conflict-affected countries such as Syria.

"For the production of good reliable statistics the good governance and reliability of the government is critical -- so everybody wants to know what's happening in Syria, how many people are affected -- but it's very difficult because the country is not stable enough to collect statistics," she said.

Other key findings showed that inequalities persist in areas such as education, pay and representation in government, despite some improvements in recent years. Enditem