Women in Iceland including PM go on strike for equal pay and an end to violence

Iceland’s prime minister and women across the country have gone on strike to push for an end to unequal pay and gender-based violence.

Katrin Jakobsdottir said she would stay home as part of the “women’s day off”, and expected other women in her cabinet to do the same.

“We have not yet reached our goals of full gender equality and we are still tackling the gender-based wage gap, which is unacceptable in 2023,” the prime minister said.

“We are still tackling gender-based violence, which has been a priority for my government to tackle.”

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Organisers called on women and nonbinary people to refuse both paid and unpaid work, including household chores, during the one-day strike.

Schools and the health system, which have female-dominated workforces, said they would be heavily affected by the walkout.

National broadcaster RUV said it was reducing television and radio broadcasts for the day.

Tuesday’s walkout is being billed as the biggest since Iceland’s first such event on October 24th, 1975, when 90 per cent of women refused to work, clean or look after children, to voice anger at discrimination in the workplace. The following year Iceland passed a law guaranteeing equal rights irrespective of gender.

The original strike inspired similar protests in other countries including Poland, where women boycotted jobs and classes in 2016 to protest against a proposed abortion ban.

Iceland has been ranked as the world’s most gender-equal country 14 years in a row by the World Economic Forum, which measures pay, education healthcare and other factors.

No country has achieved full equality, and there remains a gender pay gap in Iceland. – AP