According to data from the World Health Organization, among the 224 countries and regions around the world, the average life expectancy of men is 70.31 years and women is 75.33 years. Among them, Japan has become the country with the highest average life expectancy of women with

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According to data from the World Health Organization, among the 224 countries and regions around the world, the average life expectancy of men is 70.31 years and women is 75.33 years. Among them, Japan has become the country with the highest average life expectancy of women with an impressive achievement of 86.8 years and men with an impressive life expectancy of 80.5 years. As for the country with the shortest life expectancy in the world, it is the small South African country, , Swaziland , and most people cannot live to be 35 years old. So, what kind of country is Swaziland? Why are the people so common and short-lived?

South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho map

Swaziland is a small landlocked country in southeastern Africa. It is located on the eastern slope of the Drakens Mountains on the southeastern edge of the South African plateau. It borders South Africa on the north, west and south sides. Only the east is adjacent to Mozambique . The land area is about 17,300 square kilometers and the population is about 1.39 million. The capital is Mbabane . Swaziland is a multi-ethnic mixed country, with Swaziland accounting for about 90%, while the rest are Zulu , Tonga, white and European and African mixed races. The official languages ​​are English and Swati, and about 60% of the citizens believe in Christianity.

Swaziland people were initially distributed in Central Africa, East Africa , and began to migrate south in the late 15th century, settled in Swaziland in the 16th century, and established an independent kingdom. In the early 20th century, Swaziland was invaded by British colonists and by 1907 it had completely become its "protective country". Swaziland was ruled by Britain for nearly 70 years and was not declared independent until 1968. In 2018, King Mswati III announced the change of the country's name to "Svathini", but it has not been accepted by the international community so far.

Mswati III

After Swaziland's independence, it boldly abandoned the British democratic system and implemented monarchical autocracy , which can be described as a "reversal" in history. To this day, Swaziland remains the most authoritarian, darkest and most closed country on the African continent. Under this monarchical monarchy, Swaziland not only has no democracy and freedom, but also has lagged behind in economic development for a long time, and the phenomenon of a huge gap between the rich and the poor is even more common.

To be fair, Swaziland has the advantages of economic development and its domestic natural resources are rich. Among them, the reserves of resources such as asbestos , coal, iron, kaolin, forests, etc. are very considerable, and there are a large amount of gold and diamond reserves. If these resources can be developed reasonably and effectively, Swaziland is fully qualified to be among the top-middle-income countries. However, according to World Bank statistics, Swaziland's per capita GDP is only US$4,140, ​​less than 1/2 of that of China, and is a lower-middle-income country .

Most Swazilanders live in poverty

Make an inappropriate analogy. Swaziland is like holding a "grape pot" but living a hard life, which is really incredible. In fact, the reason why Swaziland has been in poverty for a long time is that its economy is heavily dependent on South Africa and has little room for maneuver, which leads to a single export commodity and extremely uneven economic development. At the same time, Swaziland's exports are mainly agricultural products and ore exports, and are greatly affected by climate conditions and international market changes, which is not conducive to the sustained and healthy development of the economy.

Due to the long-term economic sluggishness (the growth rate in 2018 was only 1.3%), jobs continued to decline and unemployment rate continued to rise. Currently, Swaziland's unemployment rate is about 28%, while young and middle-aged unemployment rate is as high as 42.6%, far exceeding the average in sub-Saharan Africa. The existence of a large number of unemployed people is tantamount to "time bombs" for social security. If effective measures are not taken to increase the employment rate, the consequences will be unimaginable. However, what is more worrying than the high unemployment rate is the health of the people in Swaziland.

Swaziland's annual carnival-reed festival

At present, Swaziland's average life expectancy is only 35 years old, making it the country with the shortest average life expectancy in the world. The reason for this is that in addition to the low living standards and poor medical and health conditions, it is also related to the openness of Swaziland people's sexual concepts and dislike using condoms, which leads to the rampant AIDS and .According to statistics from the World Health Organization, Swaziland's HIV infection rate is as high as 25.8%, ranking first in the world. There is a general concern that if strong and effective measures are not taken to correct it, it may not take long before Swaziland will be destroyed due to the spread of AIDS.

In fact, the reason why the Swaziland people are very open in terms of sexual concepts has a lot to do with the "demonstration role" of the former king Sobuza II and the current king Mswati III. According to information, Sobuza II has more than 100 concubines and left more than 1,000 descendants, while Mswati III currently has 13 concubines, but he expands his harem through "drafts" every year. With these two erotic kings as "a role model", it is probably not easy to change the preferences of Swaziland people in terms of sexual concepts.

Swaziland beauty

To put it off topic, Swaziland has not established diplomatic relations with mainland China until its independence, but has maintained so-called "diplomatic relations" with the Taiwan authorities, and has stood up for it and endorsed it on many international occasions. It also submits resolutions supporting Taiwan's accession to the United Nations every year, providing space for the Taiwan authorities to create national separatism and seriously hurting the feelings of the Chinese people. With the West African country Burkina Faso reopening diplomatic relations with China in 2018, Swaziland became the only country among the 56 African countries to have not established diplomatic relations with China, and it seemed extremely lonely and stubborn.

Source: "Nation: Lesotho/Swaziland".