Some interesting facts about women:
Europe
Germany - German working women earn 24% less than men.
Serbia and Montenegro - Maternity pay is 100% for 365 days.
Denmark and Sweden - Highest rates of female employment in Europe - 73.3%.
Sweden - Parents of newborn babies are entitled to 16 months leave between them.
Finland - 58% of ministerial positions are held by women, highest percentage in the world.
Latvia and Lithuania - Europe’s highest share of female managers - 41%.
Italy - only 46.9% of women in Italy are in employment, one of the lowest rates in Europe.
Ireland - Abortion is against the law unless a woman’s life is at risk (including the risk of suicide).
Spain and France - Highest life expectancy in Europe for women – 84.4 years.
United Kingdom - 175% increase in number of women having cosmetic breast surgery over the past five years.
Oldest first-time mothers in Europe (average 30 years).
Bulgaria - Youngest first-time mothers in Europe (average age 24.7 years).
North America
USA - Women have voted at higher rates than men in every presidential election since 1980. Last month 8 million more women than men voted for Obama.
Women earn 23% less on average than men.
30% of US girls become pregnant before the age of 20.
South America
Chile - Michelle Bachelet was sworn in as Chile’s first woman President in 2006 (only one out of 150 global heads of state are women).
Bolivia - The minimum age for women to marry is 14 (men must be 16).
Mexico - Abortion is illegal except in Mexico City.
Caribbean - Around a third of women suffer domestic violence. UN crime trends surveys suggest that three of the region’s small island states are among the 10 countries with the highest incidence of rape worldwide.
Colombia - According to statistics from the non-governmental Colombian Commission of Jurists, from January 2002 to June 2006 one woman a day on average died as a result of political violence.
Venezuela - There are 60,000 births a year to women under 15 years of age,
Africa
Malawi - An estimated 600,000 women are HIV positive (in a population of 13 million)
Sierra Leone - For every 100,000 births an estimated 2,000 women die in childbirth, the highest rate in the world.
Democratic Republic of Congo - More than 3,500 reported rape cases in the first six months of 2008.
Rwanda - 49% of seats in parliament are held by women - the highest ration in the world.
Asia
China -The 1979 one-child policy has led to an estimated 400mfewer people. The fertility rate is between 1.7 and 1.8 births per woman, below the 2.1 births needed to keep the population at a stable level.
Bangladesh - Around half of all girls are married by the age of 15, 60% are mothers by the age of 19.
Japan and Hong Kong - Female life expectancy is 85 years, the highest in the world.
South Korea - It is estimated that 50% of women in their twenties have had cosmetic surgery.
Cambodia - Has 55,000 prostitutes, one third of whom are under 18.
Thailand - Prostitution accounts for a third of the Thai economy, which supports 2.8m female prostitutes.
India - Over the past 20 years, since the introduction of ultrasound devices, 10 million female foetuses have been aborted.
A rape occurs every 34 minutes and a woman is killed every 93 minutes.
Pakistan - Between January and October 2007 in the province of Sindh, 183 women were murdered in family ‘honour’ killings.
Eurasia
Afghanistan - Only 12.6% of women aged 15 or over are literate, the figure is 43.1% for men.
Russia - At least one woman dies every hour due to domestic violence, 14,000 women are killed every year.
Kazakhstan - Women make up 50% of the labour force compared to 46% in the UK.
Armenia - More than a quarter of women have experienced domestic violence.
Kyrgyzstan - Up to half of all marriages are the result of ‘bride kidnapping’, a practice also common elsewhere in central Asia and the Caucasus.
Middle East
Egypt - As many as 90% of women have been circumcised, in 2007 Egypt moved to fully criminalise the practice.
Arab States - World’s lowest rates for female parliamentary ministers, 9% of total seats on average.
Israel - 15.1% of women hold a Bachelor’s degree versus 12.3% of men.
Saudi Arabia - Held first nationwide elections in 2004, women are still not entitled to vote.
Yemen - A woman has only a one-in-three chance of being able to read and write.
Iran - Since 2001 over 70,000 blogs have been created, mostly by women wanting to discuss taboo subjects such as sex and compulsory wearing of the hijab.
Australasia
New Zealand - The only country where women are more promiscuous than men, averaging 20.4 sexual partners.
Australia - 31% of babies born since 2001 were to unmarried mothers.
Papua New Guinea - An estimated 500 women were attacked in 2006-7, suspected of causing Aids by means of witchcraft.