Thousands of Swiss Women Protest For Equal Treatment

Geneva: Thousands of women across Switzerland took to streets in protest demanding equal treatment and conditions compared with their male counterparts. The protests organized by trade unions and civic organizations came almost three decades after a 1991 strike when women demanded that a constitutional article on equality of the sexes be written into legislation.

Swiss female politicians - mostly decked out in purple, the movement’s colour - on Friday streamed out of Parliament in the capital of Bern, where several thousand women were demonstrating, public broadcaster RTS reported. Hundreds of marchers also blocked roads near the main train station in Zurich, the country’s financial centre. Demonstrators in Geneva’s Parc Bertrand hoisted a banner showing that only 8 per cent of jobs in engineering were held by women in Switzerland, in contrast to 91 per cent of the country’s domestic help jobs. The Swiss Federal Statistics office says women on average earned 12 per cent less than men - known as the gender pay gap - for similar work as of 2016, citing the most recent data available. Later, thousands spread out on Geneva’s landmark Plainpalais square in a sea of purple. (IANS)

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