World’s Worst Place For a Woman? Stacey Dooley Investigates - TV Preview

Dooley’s distress and exasperation is constant and will be shared by any sensitive viewer. You have been warned.

The World's Worst Place to be a Woman? Stacey Dooley investigates (BBC)

“Femicide” is a crime you will become much too familiar with by the time you’ve watched Stacey Dooley’s latest investigation into the world’s worst places to be a woman. Of course we all know that women are savagely repressed in the Gulf, across those unfortunate lands occupied by so-called Islamic State, and in other societies where perversions of religions seem to play such a major part in making women’s lives a misery. But Central America?

Yes indeed, Central America, and, more precisely, Honduras, which is the female murder – femicide – capital of the world, and the slaughter is concentrated in women under the age of 24, living in poor urban areas. Gunshot wounds are the most common injury, but, in the case of Heidi, it was a machete that took her feet, hacked away by her husband when she threatened to walk out on him. She is living not only with that disability, and with her two daughters, but also with the knowledge that her assailant will be out in a couple of years, having only been convicted of the Honduran equivalent of GBH. If Britain had the murder rate of Honduras, about 1,000 people a week would be killed: no wonder murder is the leading cause of death among young women there.

Why Honduras? In the words of one of the many prisoners inside for attacking women, it’s because the men in Honduras “don’t like it when their chicks cheat on them”. An unusually macho culture, freely available weaponry and the prevalence and power of the drug trade, plus corrupt and complacent officials, all conspire to destroy the lives and health of so many women. Gang leaders have “gang wives” as well as their regular spouse; and they use women as honey pots to entrap rival gang members. One woman was responsible for the deaths of 42 men in such circumstances, though she didn’t see herself as levelling some sort of homicidal gender balance, tempting though that might be.

And, as ever, the influence of religion – the Roman Catholic Church – is not helpful, as the Honduran government has made abortion illegal in all circumstances, including rape and under-age rape – with a penalty of six years in jail if you get caught trying to terminate a pregnancy. The hospital wards of the country are overcrowded with young women and girls who have been sexually abused. The ones who make it to full term have to give birth communally, such is the pressure on space. Dooley’s distress and exasperation is constant and will be shared by any sensitive viewer. You have been warned.