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.
Workers in the ship-breaking industry are still left out of group-insurance coverage, despite the fact that some fatal accidents have occurred in recent times.
Absence of proper government inspections is mainly attributed to leaving thousands of people working at the ship-breaking yards out of risk coverage.
Bangladesh Ship Breakers Association (BSBA) data show presently more than 179 companies are directly doing business with more than 0.1 million people engaged in work.
Sector-insiders said there is still no clea...
Families who live on ‘chars’ – river islands formed from sedimentation – are extremely vulnerable to natural disasters. This family wades through floodwaters left behind after heavy rains in August caused major rivers to burst their banks in northern Bangladesh.
Jahanara Begum, a 35-year-old housewife, is surrounded by thatched-roof homes, all of which are partially submerged by floodwater.
Heavy rains throughout the monsoon months, beginning in August, left thousands of people in northern Bangladesh homeless or in dire straits as the mighty Brahmaputra, Dharla and Teesta rivers burst their banks, spilling out over the countryside.
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 campaign started with only handful of people and one affiliate, the Resource Integration Center (RIC). It has s...
The campaign started with only handful of people and one affiliate, the Resource Integration Center (RIC). It has s...
