The government on Wednesday dismissed the Thomson Reuters Foundation report titled 'The world's most dangerous countries for women 2018' which held India as the most dangerous country for women, saying that it is based on an opinion poll, rather than data.
"Reuters has used a flawed methodology to arrive at this claim. The ranking is based on a perception poll based on responses to simply six questions. The results are not derived from any kind of data and are solely based on inherently subjective opinions," said the Women and Child Development Ministry in a statement.
"Further, the poll has been conducted with 548 respondents, which have been defined by Reuters as 'experts focused on women's issues'. However, information on their designation, credentials, country of expertise or qualifications is not available thus reliability is an issue," it added.
The ministry also raised questions on the methodology given by the organisation which also includes 'policymakers' as one of the respondents, saying no information or opinion has been sought from it regarding this poll.
According to the poll, out of 548 global experts on women's issues, 43 are based in India who were asked questions relating to risks faced by women in six areas: healthcare, access to economic resources and discrimination, customary practices, sexual violence, nonsexual violence, and human trafficking.
The survey ranks India as more dangerous for women than war-torn Afghanistan and Syria, which came in second and third place, respectively.
India came out worst overall, and specifically worst for women in human trafficking, sexual violence and in relation to cultural, religious and tribal traditions.
--IANS
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