Switzerland is one of the world’s most successful economies, scoring highly in areas from innovation to institutional excellence. So why is our record less stellar when it comes to gender equality? Switzerland’s performance in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap 2014 Report is a case in point. We came first in the Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report, but only 11
th in terms of closing the gender gap. A closer look reveals an even starker contrast between economic success and gender bias. In the wealthy canton of Zurich, for example, women earn on average 24% less than men. In the financial sector, one of Switzerland’s signature industries, the difference is an astonishing 32%. To make matters worse, Swiss women are more at risk of poverty than men.
A series of trials for war crimes still matter politically, but less than before
IT IS rare to be sentenced to death twice over. On October 29
th Bangladesh’s self-styled International Crimes Tribunal told Motiur Rahman Nizami (pictured), leader of the country’s main Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami, that he would hang. The tribunal convicted the 71-year-old of murder, rape and looting as a pro-Pakistani militia leader during the country’s war of secession from Pakistan in 1971. Mr Nizami’s sentence came on top of a separate one from a criminal court in January, ordering his execution after he was convicted over a big haul of arms, destined for insurgents in India’s north-east, that was discovered in 2004, when he was in government.
Imagine your life if you were married at 15, against your will, to an abusive husband. It’s the same for almost all the women you know. Your education came to an abrupt end once you were married, and you’re not allowed to have a job – other than having babies, that is. And because you got married young, you’re probably experiencing some sexual and reproductive health problems.
This is the reality for most women and girls in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh has the fourth highest rate of child (under-18) marriage in th...
Two months ago Rashida Khatun, 13, was invited to a wedding. The daughter of a farm laborer, she didn’t know until she got there that the wedding she’d been invited to would be her own.
Like 29.1 percent of female Bangladeshis, Khatun was married before the age of 15. Now the country with among the world’s highest rates of child marriage (depending on how it’s defined) is addressing the issue in a way that has raised eyebrows among human rights advocates: A government body in Bangladesh has proposed lowering the legal age at which people can marry, from 18 to 16 for girls and from 21 to 18 for boys.
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The US envoy described the opening of three visa collection centers in Chittagong, Sylhet and Dhaka as an important development in promoting partnership, relationshi...
