birth out of wedlock [ illegitimate birth ]

extra-marital birth

proportion of live births outside marriage

The year 1922 was used as a base line and notes the most significant increases in non-marital births. Youth crime and divorce rates began around 1960, both in the U.S. and Canada, while the backdrop of population, total live births and marriages rates remained proportionate.

High rates of divorce/separation and non-marital births have led to correspondingly high rates of fatherlessness which have been escalating since 1960.

In fact, births have remained steady over the last ten years in the range of 1.2-1.4 children, with the ratio of children born to unmarried mothers rising to 30%-40%.

In summary, the position of Afghan women can, roughly speaking, be outlined in 12 brief points, namely an average life expectancy of 44; a high death rate during childbirth (1 600 per 100 000 childbirths); only 14% of all women over the age of 15 can read; a low status, because women are owned by men; a frequent and increasing number of threats and intimidation of women in public roles, including murder; hardly any protection of Afghan women’s organisations from the local authorities or foreign troops against targeted attacks; it is the family that decides, in the main, whether girls can be educated; persistent attacks on girls’ s ...[+++]chools – for example, in November 2008, eight schoolgirls and four women lecturers were mutilated in the town of Kandahar by the Taliban spraying acid in their faces; the continued threat of sexual violence in and outside of marriage; approximately 57% of all girls are married off before their 16th birthday; crimes committed against women are hardly reported for fear of retaliatory action by the family, tribe, perpetrators or even by the police; and self-mutilation, and even suicide, by Afghan women on account of their hopeless situations.