Georgetown WPS Index 2025: which countries moved the most on women's safety since 2019

The Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security released their 2025 [WPS Index](https://giwps.georgetown.edu/the-index/) in late 2024. It scores 174 countries on three dimensions: inclusion (education, jobs, parliament), justice (laws, son bias), and security (intimate partner violence, community safety, political violence).

For travel planning, the security sub-score is the one most of us actually want. Here's what stood out to me.

Top 10 on security (2025)

Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Singapore, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Ireland, Austria. Nordics dominate as expected. Singapore at #6 is consistent with how solo female travelers usually describe it.

Notable movers up since 2019

- Georgia (the country): jumped roughly 20 spots driven by lower IPV reporting and policy reforms
- Portugal: steady climb, now top 20
- Vietnam: improved on community safety perception

Notable movers down since 2019

- Afghanistan: now ranked last, which surprises nobody after 2021
- Myanmar: significant drop post-coup
- Several US states would individually be moving down if scored, but the federal score is one data point per country

Caveats

- "Community safety" is a perception survey, so it captures how women feel, not just hard incident rates
- The index doesn't disaggregate by district, so a city like Mexico City (rough overall MX score) might feel very different in Roma Norte vs other areas
- 2-year lag in some inputs

I find it most useful as a sanity check against my gut feeling rather than a ranking to trust blindly.

Question for the sub: anyone been to a country recently whose WPS score does NOT match your on-the-ground experience? Both directions interesting.