And The Worst Country To Be A Woman Is...

This article lists which countries are ranked the best and worst to be a woman in, using the Women, Peace and Security Index. 

Download or read the article below, or read the original by USA Today here. 

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Drum roll, please. ... It's a tie — Syria and Afghanistan.

Those two countries are the worst places to be a woman, according to the 2018 Women, Peace and Security Index, put together by the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security and the Peace Research Institute of Oslo.

The United States came in as the 22nd best place to be a woman.

The index measured women's "well being and empowerment" in 153 countries and ranked the nations on peace, security and women’s inclusion. The measures included years of schooling, number of female lawmakers, employment, legal and other discrimination, war, intimate partner violence and cellphone use.

The two conflict-ridden Middle Eastern countries of Syria and Afghanistan were at the bottom of the list. 

Iceland was ranked as the best country in which to be a woman.

The civil war raging in Syria since 2011 shows no sign of abating. Last month, the BBC reported that Syrian women were being sexually exploited in return for humanitarian aid. 

In Afghanistan, where women were stripped of their rights by the Taliban government between 1996 and 2001, gender-based violence is rampant, more than 80% of women are illiterate, and many die in childbirth.

A 2015 World Bank survey found that women remain legally discriminated against in the workplace in 155 out of 173 countries.

These are the worst countries in which to be a woman, according to the index:

1. Syria and Afghanistan

3.Yemen

4.Pakistan

5. Central African Republic

6. Democratic Republic of Congo

7. Iraq

8. Mali

9. Sudan

10. Niger 

And the best:

1. Iceland 

2. Norway

3. Switzerland

4. Slovenia

5. Spain

6. Finland

7. Canada, Netherlands and Sweden 

10. Belgium, Singapore