1. Afghanistan
- Beleaguered by insurgency, corruption and dire poverty, Afghanistan ranked as most dangerous to women overall and came out worst in three of the poll's key risk categories: health, non-sexual violence and economic discrimination.
- Women in Afghanistan have a one in 11 chance of dying in childbirth.
- Some 87 per cent of women are illiterate.
- Seventy to eighty per cent of girls and women face forced marriages.
- Still reeling from a 1998-2003 war and accompanying humanitarian disaster that killed 5.4 million, Democratic Republic of Congo ranked second due mainly to staggering levels of sexual violence.
- About 1,150 women are raped every day, or some 420,000 a year, according to a recent report in the American Journal of Public Health.
- The Congolese Women's Campaign Against Sexual Violence puts the number of rapes at 40 women a day.
- Fifty-seven per cent of pregnant women are anaemic.
- Those polled cited cultural, tribal and religious practices harmful to women, including acid attacks, child and forced marriage and punishment or retribution by stoning or other physical abuse.
- More than 1,000 women and girls are victims of "honour killings" every year, according to Pakistan's Human Rights Commission.
- Ninety per cent of women in Pakistan face domestic violence.
- Female foeticide, child marriage and high levels of trafficking and domestic servitude make the world's largest democracy the fourth most dangerous place for women, the poll showed.
- One hundred million people, mostly women and girls, are involved in trafficking in one way or another, according to former Indian Home Secretay Madhukar Gupta.
- Up to 50 million girls are "missing" over the past century due to female infanticide and foeticide.
- At last 44.5 per cent of girls are married before the age of 18.
- One of the poorest, most violent and lawless countries, Somalia ranked fifth due to a catalogue of dangers including high maternal mortality, rape, female genital mutilation (FGM) and child marriage.
- Ninety-five per cent of women face FGM, mostly between the ages of 4 and 11.
- Only 9 per cent of women give birth at a health facility.
- Only 7.5 per cent of parliament seats are held by women.