Here's what I think is one of the most under reported stories of the year, if not the decade.
Among our "friends" in the Middle East there is a very disturbing trend. Millions of women are strangely unaccounted for and I have heard very few asking any questions about this.
There are 2,000,000 missing women in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
450,000 missing in the State of Kuwait.
350,000 missing in the United Arab Emirates.
280,000 missing in the Sultanate of Oman.
230,000 missing in the State of Qatar.
Where are they? I hope that I am wrong. But the numbers suggest catastrophic heights of misogyny among our "friends" in the Middle East. These lost populations look even worse when you consider the numbers as a percentage of total population. Relatively speaking, these are not countries with large populations. So, what is happening that there would be:
7.6% missing in Saudi Arabia, 19% missing in Kuwait, nearly 15% missing in the UAE, 9% missing in Oman, and 27% missing in Qatar?!
The details and analysis are below the fold.
We know that we're dealing with theocratically fortified patriarchal, hereditary monarchies here. The rights of women in these societies are mercilessly curtailed. Total male domination. But, can it really be this bad?
All my numbers are based on numbers are gathered by the CIA World Factbook, which in turn gathers their own numbers from a variety of different sources.
Let's look at KUWAIT, our favorite hereditary emirate?
Total Population: 2,418,393
This includes 1,291,354 non-nationals. Note that over half the population are not citizens. This could be skewing the male:female ratio. I'll examine this further down below.
Here's the breakdown of the age structure of the population:
0-14 years: 26.9% (male 331,768/female 319,895)
15-64 years: 70.3% (male 1,085,721/female 613,746)
65 years and over: 2.8% (male 42,460/female 24,803) (2006 est.)
The 15-64 years age group is where things really look wrong. There's a 471,975 female deficit in this population. So, I subtract 11,873 because that's the difference of females in the 0-14 years population—can't count females who were never born as missing(I'm being optimistic here).
That leaves me with 460,102 MISSING WOMEN.
I would like to add here that there really is no indication that females are being killed in infancy. There's a consistent pattern in many populations of more males in the 0 to14 year age group. The difference usually narrows in the 15-64 age group. This occurs in the United States, for instance. Here we start out with 1,379,975 more males in the 0-14 age group, then end up with 390,639 more females in the 15-64 age group. Our issue is the opposite, one of males leaving the population in some way.
Then I consider the migration rate: 15.66 migrants per 1000 population.
I then take the total 2,418,393 population divide by 1000, then multiply by 15.66. This gets me about 38,000 migrants. So let's assume, optimistically, that all these migrants are male.
I've still got 422,000 MISSING WOMEN.
That's 17% of the total population!
And this is the gut blow here. 17% of a country's population consists of women unaccounted for? Perhaps hundreds of thousands of women fled, were killed, or kidnapped during the Iraq invasion? Never to return?
In Saudi Arabia we find, or lose 1,926,405* women out of a total population of 27,019,731.
This includes 5,576,076 non-nationals. It should be considered that it is remarkably easy to become a non-national in the Kingdom. Especially if you're a woman. If a Saudi woman marries a Saudi non-national, she then becomes a non-national. And so are all their children. See under: "The World Is Flat"[snark] In addition, with an average of 4 children born to every woman, the Kingdom becomes a remarkable producer of people without a country. Imagine, 1/5th of the entire population are non-national, but fully subject to the whims of Wahhabist religious police.
- I arrive at this number after taking into account the Saudi net migration rate of -4.94 migrants per 1,000 population. That's a 4.94 emigration rate, or about 5 persons out of 1000 leaving the Kingdom. So I assume, optimistically again, all those emigrating from Saudi Arabia are women. That's about 135,000. 2,061,405 — 135,000 = 1,926,405 MISSING WOMEN.
Let's take a look at gender ratios.
From the UC Atlas of Global Inequality
The legend above is based on the number of women per 100 men. It would follow that in having the highest percentages of missing women in a total population, these countries would also have the lowest female to male gender ratios. A new definition of Red States?
Another disturbing discrepancy is in the median age. Females tend to be a lot younger than males in those countries with the lowest female to male ratios.
KUWAIT
total: 25.9 years
male: 28 years
female: 22.3 years (a five year difference).
OMAN
total: 19 years
male: 21.7 years
female: 16.5 years (a five year difference. 16? That's really quite young).
SAUDI ARABIA
total: 21.4 years
male: 22.9 years
female: 19.4 years (a three year difference).
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
total: 28.1 years
male: 34.8 years
female: 23.3 years (an eleven year difference)?!
QATAR
total: 31.7 years
male: 37.1 years
female: 22.7 years (a fourteen year difference)!
I don't find nearly these levels of median age difference between genders in any other country listed by Freedom House as "Not Free." So it's not simply political oppression and meager to zero civil liberties that are at work here.
Though, it is possible that a net migration of males seeking work in the Not Free but oil rich and Free Trade friendly world could account for the lower populations of women. Particularly in Kuwait and the UAE where net migration is positive, but not so in Saudi Arabia where more are emigrating. Maybe women are simply leaving the Kingdom? This is probably unlikely without some sort of Harriet Tubman-like underground railroad, since women in Saudi Arabia are spared the "indignity of driving" and can't leave their home without a male relative escorting them.
From the latest analysis I could find on the subject there is this explanation.
Klasen and Wink (2003) point out that there is a considerable migrant flow from South Asia to the oil-rich Arab states, such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirate, Qatar and Libya. The people migrating for work are predominantly men and the demographics in those countries – to some degree -- reflect the greater proportion of men in their society. However, the countries the men are migrating from are very populous and the migration has little influence on the sex ratio.
From: Klasen and Wink, "Missing Women: Revisiting the Debate"
Now I can understand how an inflow of male workers could skew the gender ratios in these countries, but how could such an overwhelmingly male migration effect the big differences in the male and female median age?
I think a better explanation can be found here in this recent report.
UN report: women needed for ‘Arab renaissance’
No shit.
Key Quote:
Conflicts, foreign occupations, terrorism and the dominance of "conservative and inflexible political forces" protecting "masculine culture and values" were the biggest obstacles, it added.
Maternal mortality rates are "unacceptably high" in Arab nations, averaging 270 deaths per 100,000 and ranging from just seven per 100,000 in oil-rich Qatar to over 1,000 in impoverished Somalia and Mauritania, the report said.
In addition, women lose a larger number of years to disease compared to men in manner that is unconnected to wealth, risk factors, pregnancy or childbirth, indicating "general lifestyles that discriminate against women"."
What's being suggested here is that since women are traditionally hidden from male view in these Middle Eastern Gulf States they are generally unavailable to be examined by a physician. And so receive health care that is probably worse than many domesticated animals. Hundreds of thousands of women, probably being killed by the kind of criminal neglect that would be prosecuted here in the US by common "anti-cruelty" statutes to protect animals.
A Little Perspective
Consider Afghanistan, where the Taliban is resurgent; an average of 6.69 children are born to every childbearing woman, the median age for males and females is only 17.6 years, and infant mortality rates are a dismal 160 deaths out of every 1000 births.
Total population: 31,056,997 (July 2006 est.)
Missing females: 96,895
As a percentage of total population: 0.3%
IRAQ
Total population: 26,783,383 (July 2006 est.)
Missing females: 32,646
As a percentage of total population: 0.1%
Median age:
total: 19.7 years
male: 19.6 years
female: 19.8 years
IRAN(Member, Axis of Evil)
Total population: 68,688,433 (July 2006 est.)
Missing females: 415,308
As a percentage of total population: 0.6%
Median age:
total: 24.8 years
male: 24.6 years
female: 25 years
SYRIA(Member, Axis of Evil)
Total population: 18,881,361
note: in addition, about 40,000 people live in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights - 20,000 Arabs (18,000 Druze and 2,000 Alawites) and about 20,000 Israeli settlers (July 2006 est.)
Missing females: 70,177
As a percentage of total population: 0.37%
Median age:
total: 20.7 years
male: 20.6 years
female: 20.9 years
ISRAEL
Total population: 6,352,117
note: includes about 187,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank, about 20,000 in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, and fewer than 177,000 in East Jerusalem (July 2006 est.)
Note a difference of 39,425 females in the 0-14 age group, and 27,488 in the 15-64 group.
Missing females: 11,947
As a percentage of total population: 0.18%
Median Age:
total: 29.6 years
male: 28.8 years
female: 30.5 years
From this perspective, a think the US should consider reworking the criteria for inclusion in the Axis of Evil.
What is a greater threat to future democracy and liberty in Iraq: Al Qaeda and/or Iran or conservative and inflexible political forces protecting masculine culture and values? By counting the tremendous losses here, I believe the answer is quite clear.