Did You Know?

• A drop in the crime rate in Bogota, Colombia has left the city not only statistically safer than Caracas and Rio de Janeiro, but also more secure than cities in the U.S., such as Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, Maryland.
  SOURCE: The New York Times, September 15, 2001. ?Conflict Rages, but Capital Basks in Good Times.?.

• Eighty percent of the Afro-Colombian population in Colombia lives in extreme poverty and have annual incomes per capita of between $500 to $600, while the national average is $1,500.
  SOURCE: Dirección Nacional de Planeación, Colombia 1999.

• Between 1985 and 2000, infant mortality rate decreased by 56 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean.

  SOURCE: Health Situation in the Americas: Basic Indicators 2000, Pan American Health Organization.

• The female-to-male hourly wage ratio in Colombia and Costa Rica is over 100%, where females earn more by the hour than males.
  SOURCE: S. Duryea, A. Cox Edwards, M. Ureta. ?A Survey of Women in the Labor Market.? IDB.

• Although Brazil has one of the most progressive anti-AIDS programs in the world, women-housevies in particular-are becoming infected at an alarming rate. A recent government survey showed that the number of new AIDS cases reported among women shot up 75.3 percent from 1994 to 1998, compared with a 10.2 percent increase among men.

  Source: Washington Post Foreign Service, September 30, 2001 (page A34). ?Brazilian Women Ravaged by AIDS?.

• Almost 50 percent of pregnant women seen in health centers in Tegucigalpa and the surrounding area show evidence of some type of obstetric risk, with advanced age being the most frequently recorded, according to medical researchers from the Post-Graduate Nursing Program at the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH). Source: Diario Tiempo, Nacionales: October 15, 2001.>

• In the Dominican Republic, 19.3 percent of the working male population are paid a salary lower than the legal minimum, while among women workers that figure increases to 33.4 percent, according to the National Household Survey of Income and Expense conducted by the Central Bank.

  Source: ?Hoy?, October 14, 2001, ?Citan cifras del empleo arroja última encuesta.?

Last updated: 03/15/07