Gabon

Women

Gabon ranks 128 out of 162 countries in the Gender Inequality Index, where a high rank equals high equality. Women should always be considered as a particularly vulnerable group though.

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Children

Gabon has a Workplace Index score of 4.5, a Marketplace Index score of 6.8 and a Community and Environment Index score of 5.0 in the Children’s Rights and Business Atlas, where countries receive scores between 0 and 10. A score closer to 0 reflects a need for basic children’s rights due diligence, while a higher score reflects a need for enhanced or heightened due diligence. Children should always be considered as a particularly vulnerable group though. 

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Persons with Disabilities

Due to differences in data collection and definitions it is difficult to compare countries on disability prevalence rates. Persons with disabilities should always be considered as a particularly vulnerable group though.

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Minorities and Indigenous Peoples

According to the World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples, the Gabonese population is culturally diverse but with few of the major schisms by language family, form of livelihood, spatial isolation and differing ecologies that divide neighbouring countries. As the language of instruction is French no Gabonese ethnic group enjoys adequate possibilities to learn and value its mother tongue. Among many minor ethnic groups are Batéké. Numerically the most important Gabonese ethnic group, with about a third of the country’s population, Fang immigrated from present-day Cameroon in the nineteenth century. They represent a southern branch of a people spread across  Cameroon and all of Equatorial Guinea. Fang are active as accumulating entrepreneurs and farmers in the northern Woleu N’Tem area, where Protestant churches and schools are numerous, and some enjoy a small margin of economic autonomy from government. Until recent years, French military and economic power guaranteed that the European minority remained large and suffered no privation. That is rapidly changing, as many French expatriates have chosen to repatriate. The non-Gabonese African minority has faced a different fate. Several thousand nomadic BaAka (‘Pygmies’) pursue isolated and nomadic livelihoods in the forests, mainly in the north-east.

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Migrant Workers​

According to the ILO Global Estimates on International Migrant Workers, migrant workers as a proportion of all workers is 3 % in the subregion Sub-Saharan Africa.

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Persons in Armed Conflict

Gabon ranks 101 out of 179 countries in the Fragile States Index, where a high rank equals high fragility. For monthly crisis updates, check out CrisisWatch.