Report: women's status improves in central Europe, remains poor in Africa

[arcos]

Report: women's status improves in central Europe, remains poor in Africa

HARTFORD, Conn. -- The status of women is improving in the former communist countries of central Europe, while women continue to suffer high levels of mortality in childbirth and low levels of education and contraceptive use in Africa, an advocacy group reported Tuesday.

Five days before Mother's Day, Save the Children issued its annual "State of the World's Mothers" that also showed the status of women in Chile, Costa Rica and Cuba approaching some measurements of industrialized countries.

In its ranking of 119 nations, Save the Children says women fare best in prosperous northern European countries such as Sweden, Denmark and Finland that decades ago established welfare systems providing health and retiree benefits for the young and the old.

Sweden ranked No. 1 in the list compiled by the Westport-based group, and Niger was at the bottom, at No. 119. The United States ranked No. 10.

<snip>

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ct--mothersstatus0504may04,0,3776069.story?coll=ny-ap-regional-wire

[belle]

1. WE'RE NUMBER 10!! WE'RE NUMBER 10!! oh, wait.

[gottaB]

2. War is not healthy for children

It deserves to be more than a footnote, but it's there. An unmistakable fact. A consequence even. It's so predictable. There ought to be a law.

http://www.savethechildren.org/news/releases/release_sowm04_b.asp