Women around the world are being put at further risk from poverty, because developing countries are not collecting the basic census information that allows aid workers to galvinise to help them, according to a United Nations report.

If this data was collected it would make it possible to track when girls are married off when still children; where more girls than boys die because boys are better fed and taken to the doctor when ill; and where abortion is used to “select” male children.

The problem is particularly bad in Africa. “Four in 10 Africans live in countries that did not conduct a census in the past decade, and 8 in 10 live in countries with inadequate national collection of vital statistics.”

Check out the New York Times for more information.

Posted by Jess McCabe on 21 January 2006, at 6:33 PM