REYKJAVIK: Tens of thousands of women in Iceland, including the prime minister, walked off the job on Tuesday to demand equal pay and protest violence against women, organisers said.
Iceland already tops a World Economic Forum (WEF) ranking for gender equality, but organisers said the country needed to make even more progress and lead by example. “We are keenly aware that we have not reached gender equality, and even though the situation may be better than other places, there is no reason to just call it a day,” Steinunn Rognvaldsdottir, one of the organisers of “Kvennafri” (Women’s Day Off), told AFP.
The protest day has been called six times since 1975, this was only the second time that organisers made it a full-day strike, she added.
The other times, women walked off the job at a symbolic hour after which they were technically no longer earning a salary compared to male colleagues.
The average wage gap between men and women was 10.2 percent in 2021, according to Statistics Iceland.
Around 90 percent of Iceland’s women took part in the first protest in 1975, “which was momentous”, Rognvaldsdottir said. Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir was among those striking, her office told AFP.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.