According to a recent survey by ValueChampion, Malaysia is ranked fifth out of 14 countires as the safest country in Asia Pacific.
Leading the list is our neighbouring country, Singapore, followed by Australia, New Zealand, and Taiwan. The least safest country? India.
Among the reasons we were ranked fifth is due to our “fairly strict laws against sexual harassment and violence against women”.
The author of the study Anastassia Evlanova told The Star that we also scored fairly well in the Global Peace Index.
“The Gender Development Index score also saw an improvement of 5.4% between 2010 and 2017, which indicates that gender inequality may be decreasing and women are experiencing a better standard of living,” Evlanova told the English daily.
However, it seems that we might have to work harder to improve our rankings in other fields.
We ranked 11th in healthcare and opportunities for women respectively.
Among the reasons we were in the bottom five for opportunities is because of the average for mean years of schooling (10 years for females), the employment participation rate for women (which is around 50 per cent), and a high wage gap – women earned 37 per cent less than men.
As for healthcare rankings, a Malaysian woman’s life expectancy rate is below average while the maternal and infant mortality rate was quite high among 14 countries. You can read the full report here.
So, are you surprised with our rankings? We may have a long journey to go in order to improve the rankings, so let’s strive to work together with policymakers to make Malaysia a better place for women.