GII. What does it mean?

 GII, What does it mean? To all of you who said Guinebor II, congratulations but that is not the right answer. It might have been, perhaps should have been, but I have decided that everyone who answered GII, Guinebor II, will get no points and everyone who said GII, Gender inequality index  will get full marks. ( see footnote). That’s surely unfair, it is arbitrary and unjust as both answers are equally right, and that usefully illustrates the point: why does the possession of a functioning Y chromosome help about 50% of the human race to be privileged above those who have only X chromosomes.

The UK has changed a lot since I was a child, there are many more women doctors and this year for the first time a female president of the Royal College of Surgeons, Anglican women priests and again for the first time this year a female bishop. We had some time ago a women Prime Minister, and I hope that in the election next week people will vote only on policy and party and not due to the gender of candidates. In the last parliament only 22% of the seats were held by women which indicates that although things may have improved we have yet to eliminate GII. In reality female surgeons and pastors/priests still have to struggle with it, which is why the UK comes in at number 35 on the world list. This is quite a bit worse that the overall UK Human Development Index of 11^th position again showing we still have room for improvement

Chad is very near the bottom, number 150 on the same GII list, so what are the differences between the UK and Chad?

 

	UK	Chad
Maternal Mortality/100 000 births	12	1100
Adolescent (under 20 years) Pregnancy/1000	26	152
% women aged over 25 with some secondary education	99.8	1,7
Share of seats in Parliament %	22	15
Labour force participation (aged 15+)	56	64

But as Bob Dylan sang ‘the times they are a changin’ , just as they are in the UK. It wouldn’t take much for Chad to have more female MP’s than the UK, that’s partly up to you next week. There has been a massive investment in schooling and at the same time a narrowing of the historic 6 fold secondary education gender gap ( female 1.7% male 10%  in over 25 year olds)

At GII we are working to improve the first and second on the list through access to safe childbirth and family planning by community outreach, training of midwives and building the new maternity centre.

 So where are the human faces in this mass of statistics. I could tell you difficult stories about young women in a patriarchal society, such as being married at a young age and having to get her father’s permission for a caesarean section, but let’s look instead briefly at two young women at GII, (Guinebor II) and how they bucked the trend of GII (gender inequality) and hope that overtime their stories will become less extraordinary.

 

 Dr Antoinette is our first Chadian doctor, she joined the team in January as the best of the 3 candidates for the job. She trained in Russia and this is her first permanent post and she has already made an impact with her gentle patient manner and her ability to converse freely with the patients in Chadian Arabic. As a young doctor she has plenty to learn but she has had a good education and is keen.  

 The second is a bit more surprising, Clemance. Did you spot her in charge in the top photograph? She is the on-site engineer for the maternity building.  She works with the foreman, the masons and labourers to make sure the building meets specifications. Again it is her first job out of university, but she is already making a contribution to the improvement of gender inequality in Chad in more ways than one. It is exciting to see the new building taking shape.



Building site foundations dug



Foundations taking shape

The working day, plenty of workers.

Dr Antoinette and Helen ( Midwife/trainer) look at the progress.

The buildings really taking shape now
 (Andrea is in charge, she's holding the camera)

Where we were last Monday, door frames and window bars in place  



The walkway that will link the new building once the wall is breached



We have been away for a week and are looking forward to seeing the progress at our return, on both the maternity building and the long awaited perimeter wall, which so far looks like this. We will keep you informed.

 

 

*Gender inequality index is part of the Human Development Index ( UN stats). It is calculated using Maternal Mortality, Adolescent birth rate, Share of seats in parliament, Education and work force participation.