To celebrate International Women’s Day, here’s a look at what fact-checkers around the world have published over the past year on the topic of women’s rights.
Aos Fatos in Brazil looked at President Dilma Rousseff’s promises on the “Casa da Mulher” program, essentially safe homes for women seeking refuge from violence, advice on reproductive health and other counseling. Three years after announcing the construction of 26 such homes, the government has disbursed 91 percent of the funding — but only opened two units.
Full Fact looked last summer at Prime Minister David Cameron’s claim that women in the U.K. earn 80p for every £1 earned by a man — but that the pay gap has narrowed and is almost zero for full-time workers under 40. The claims are overall mostly true, even as Cameron mixed several different indicators.
Africa Check took issue with a Sky News report that according to the UN “a woman or girl is raped every 26 seconds in South Africa.” The Johannesburg-based fact-checkers noted that “South Africa has a worrying rape problem. But it also has a rape statistics problem.” The figures are not sourced from the UN and the report has since been taken down. They concluded: “Due to a lack of research the number of rapes committed each year in South Africa can’t be accurately estimated. The void mustn’t be filled with recycled and unsubstantiated claims.”
Pagella Politica looked at a claim by Italian President of the Chamber of Deputies Laura Boldrini. In October of last year Boldrini claimed that only 47 percent of women work in Italy and that according to the IMF eliminating the gender employment gap completely would provide a 15 percent boost to GDP. Her figures check out, said the Italian fact-checkers.
Argentina’s Chequeado published the findings of a chilling survey by the Argentine ministry of justice. According to the survey, 42 percent of women in the country have suffered physical or sexual violence at least once since turning 16. More figures can be found on Chequeado’s explainer.
Doğruluk Payi published today a fact sheet on the key economic, political and social indicators for women in Turkey. These range from the share female members of Parliament (14.7 percent) to that of women abused by men (4 out of 10). Find more data in this infographic.
ABC Fact Check in Australia looked at a claim that four times as many companies are run by men called Peter, Andrew, Michael or David than are run by women. At the time of writing, in October 2015, they found her “close to the mark.”
ABC Fact Check
