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Saturday, June 15, 2019

Women rally for equal pay, gender parity in Switzerland

Tens of thousands of women have joined a general strike in Switzerland to demand gender equality and better representation in the public sphere

Under slogans including "If women want they can block the nation" and "Women's rights are human rights", protesters on Friday June 14,2019 took to the streets in Geneva, Zurich, Lausanne, Lugano and other major Swiss cities

In Lausanne, demonstrations started on Thursday night outside the cathedral, where for the first time in 600 years the guardian of the bell tower was symbolically replaced by women and the bell tower was illuminated in violet, the official colour of the protest

Equal opportunities, equal pay, equal space in the public sphere and recognition of women's competence were some of the demands that women in Switzerland brought to the streets in the march

Thirty-eight years after gender equality and equal pay were enshrined in the Swiss constitution, their implementation is still deficient.

Switzerland ranks 20th in the World Economic Forum's classification of countries on gender equality, behind many European nations

When it comes to gender equality within the economic sector, the country's position drops to 34th

In 1971, Swiss men voted in a referendum to change the Constitution and allow women to vote after they rejected the proposal in 1959

Elisabeth Blunschy became one of the first women to be elected as a member of parliament in 1971. In 1977, she became the first woman president of the National Council

But while in the public sphere women were gaining some rights, in the domestic one they were still subject to their husbands

Only in 1985, women were granted equal marriage rights. Until this date, a husband had legal authority over his wife, meaning, for example, he had to approve of her opening a bank account or could prevent her from working or living where she chose.




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