India fourth most dangerous place for women: survey

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The high number of female foeticide, infanticide and human trafficking prevalent in India has placed it as the fourth most dangerous place for women in the world, according to a survey.

Afghanistan is the most dangerous place for women followed by Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, India and Somalia in the survey conducted by Thomson Reuters' Trustlaw Women, a hub of legal information and legal support for women's rights. Three of these countries are in South Asia.

The poll asked 213 experts in the field from five continents to rank countries on their overall perception of danger as well as by six key categories of risk, health threats, sexual violence, non-sexual violence, harmful practices rooted in culture, tradition and/or religion, lack of access to economic resources and human trafficking.

"India ranked fourth primarily due to female foeticide, infanticide and human trafficking," the poll said.

In 2009, India's Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta had remarked that at least 100 million people were involved in human trafficking in India, according to the survey.

The CBI has estimated that in 2009 about 90 per cent of trafficking took place within the country and that there were three million prostitutes, of which 40 per cent were children.

Other forms of exploitation include forced child labour and forced marriage.

"In India, upto 50 million girls were thought to be 'missing' over the past century due to female infanticide and foeticide," as per the UN Population Fund.