Top 4 dangers women face in African cities

A survey by Plan International has mapped out the dangers women across the world face in various cities.

Four hundred experts across 22 cities in the world were drawn from the fields of women’s rights, children’s rights and urban safety. Among the African cities featured are Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Kampala, Uganda; Cairo, Egypt;  Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso; and Bamako, Mali.

Among the aspects surveyed include: how safe is it for girls and women to leave their house by themselves or use public transport; experts’ perceptions of the frequency of sexual harassment and sexual violence in public spaces; how frequent are such incidences reported these cities; and whether there exist support structures for victims and survivors of such crimes. To what extent city dangers affect young women’s and girls’ ability to go to school or work was also explored.

The survey comes months after a report by Thomson Reuters Foundation that named Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia as Africa’s most dangerous countries.

Scroll through to find out more about the dangers African women face in African cities