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The most important issue facing women and girls in South Africa is sexual violence, and both women and men agree about this.  When the results of 28 countries are considered, this is the second most important issue (28%) in the world, while sexual harassment tops the international list (32%).

Looking at the worldwide figures, South Africa’s figures for mentioning “Domestic Abuse” and “Access to Sanitary Products” as important issues are the highest in the world.  A rather dubious honour in both cases.

People in all 28 countries overestimate the scale of violence women experience from partners, and South African women say that 62 out of every 100 women experience sexual violence from a spouse or partner.  The figure for South African men is 51.  In fact, 13% of South African women experience such abuse.

Women’s position in the workplace and high office was highlighted from a few angles. Whereas only 3% of the CEOs of the world’s 500 largest companies are women, South Africans reckoned that this figure was closer to 16%.  In this we are no different from the rest of the world – who was also overestimating the real business success of women. Of the 28 countries included in the survey, currently 44% of Swedish MP’s are women, the figure in Mexico is 43% and South Africa’s figure is 40%.  In the rest of the world far fewer women are part of political decision-making.

However, this success is not communicated and only about a quarter of South Africans are aware of this commendable fact. South Africans, like all others, hugely underestimate how long it will take for women to achieve economic equality across the world. It will take 217 years, and South Africans reckoned that 20 years will bring equality.

See attachments.

Issued by Ipsos