JAMAICA has been ranked 12th among 50 Commonwealth countries as the best place to be born a girl in a new report by the London-based Royal Commonwealth Society (RCS) and the children's charity group Plan UK.

The study rates New Zealand as the best place for girls and Sierra Leone on the coast of West Africa, the worst. 

The report, titled Because You're a Girl: Growing up in the Commonwealth and to be officially released today in commemoration of Commonwealth Day, rates the Commonwealth states on how well women and girls are doing compared to males in their country using eight indicators: life expectancy, sheer survival, education for life, expected number of years in school (primary and secondary), early pregnancy, studying hard, political participation, sporting chance, and pay gap.

Barbados, which ranked second; Trinidad and Tobago, third; Dominica, fourth; and St Lucia, which ranked 10th, scored better than Jamaica in the Caribbean.

The other countries that complete the top 10 are Seychelles at fourth, Australia and Canada sharing sixth place, Singapore and the United Kingdom tied at eighth, and war-torn Rwanda ranked at 10th place.

Jamaica shares 12th place with her Caribbean neighbour St Kitts and Nevis, the south-east Asian country of Malaysia, and Namibia in south-western Africa.

Other Caribbean countries that are included in the report are The Bahamas and St Vincent and the Grenadines that share 17th place with Mauritius and Papua New Guinea; Grenada, 23rd; and Antigua and Barbuda, which scores poorly at 45.

Countries get a grade 'A' if they score above average, 'B' for average; and 'C' for below average.

Jamaica scores 'Bs' on all indicators except for education and sport where the country earned 'As', based on the number of scholarships taken up by women in other Commonwealth countries from 2006 to 2009 and their achievement in sports, particularly in track and field.

According to the report, Jamaica's women are expected to live to an average age of 74, five years longer than men. The report also states that the number of underweight girls under age five is equal to that of the boys.

In terms of education, the report says girls stay longer (10.28 years) in school — up to end of their secondary education — than boys (10.27 years).

Meantime, the fertility rate of girls aged 15 to 19 years is 85 per 1,000. "Girls who give birth while still in their teens are not only more vulnerable to maternal mortality and morbidity but have limited capacity to enter the paid labour force, to access resources or to earn an independent income later on," the report states.

The report says 38 Jamaican women have won scholarships to study in other Commonwealth nations, compared to 21 males. Indian women have received the highest number of scholarships, 162, compared with women from Kirabati in the Pacific Ocean and as near as St Kitts and Nevis who have received none at all.

According to the report, the awarding of scholarships "represents one of the most substantial and practical examples of Commonwealth collaboration today and there is strong evidence of its development impact".

Meantime, although Jamaica scored a 'B' in terms of women's participation in politics, the data show the imbalance between the number of women and men who now sit in both houses of Parliament — 11 women compared to 68 men. The United Kingdom has the most women in Parliament, with 290, compared with the oil-rich nation of Brunei Darussalam that has none.

"All over the world, women and girls are too often the silent witnesses to decisions made in their name," the report states. "With some rare exceptions, women remain a minority among decision-makers in politics, the boardroom and in the media. As a result, institutions, policies and practices are often quite literally, 'man-made', largely reflecting the interests and experiences of only half the population."

The report also shows the disparity between the incomes of Jamaica's women and men, with the men earning almost twice as much as the women.

"Of our eight indicators this is where evidence of inequality is at its most stark," the report states.

"Men continue to earn more money, regardless, it seems, of educational attainment, political participation and equal opportunities legislation. Even in the best-performing Commonwealth countries, women only earn around four-fifths of male incomes on average. This imbalance in earning capacity both reflects and perpetuates the imbalance of power and the lack of real equality between men and women, boys and girls, in the family and society at large," the report adds.

Commenting on the report on Friday, executive director of the Bureau of Women's Affairs Faith Webster said Jamaica received a 'fair" overall ranking, but the data on the individual indicators show there are areas that need improvement.

"The ranking is fair in terms of how we are doing as a country, how much we are investing in our girls," she told the Observer.

Particular focus, Webster said, must be placed on the disparities in income and the involvement of women in decision-making -- both in politics and in the boardroom.

"There's is only one elected female in our Cabinet," she said. "The number of women coming out of tertiary institutions is not translating with the number that hold high-level positions."

Dorothy Whyte, president of the Women's Resource and Outreach Centre, agreed that Jamaica's ranking is reasonable based on the developments. However, she, too, shared the view that efforts must be made to improve the remuneration and rate of employment for Jamaica's women.

"I am glad to know that we are not at the bottom as we are in other reports. But if we can address the women's remuneration, employment rate, and gender-based violence then these three areas will really push us further up the scale," she told the Observer.

The Commonwealth has 54 member states with a total population of nearly two billion. Founded in 1868, the RCS is the oldest and largest civil society organisation devoted to the Commonwealth. Plan UK is a global children's charity that works with children in some of the world's poorest countries to help improve their lives.