Gender equality

A new law making it illegal to pay men more than women has taken effect in Iceland.

The legislation, which came into force on Monday, the first day of 2018, makes Iceland the first country in the world to legalise equal pay between men and women.

''The ratification of the Istanbul Convention will not lead to a change in the constitution. This is an important convention because we see that unfortunately there are frequent cases of domestic violence that lead to a fatal outcome.'' This was stated by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Catherine Zaharieva after the meeting of Council of Ministers, reported BGNES.

In 2016 the average number of unemployed women in Bulgaria has decreased significantly.

If in 2015 the unemployed women in our country were over 180 thousand, in 2016 their number decreased to 156 462 or by nearly 26 thousand. For the same period, unemployed men fell to 128,255, or 20,340.

For a period of two years between 2015 and 2017 Bulgaria has moved up 10 places in the European Union's gender equality ranking, reports mediapool. 

A report by the Kosovo Women's Network, assessing the extent to which Kosovo's laws are aligned with the EU "acquis" on gender equality, says domestic gender-related legislation is not being implemented.

The report warns that it is unknown even if Kosovo is meeting its own legal standards in several areas, due to the lack of hard data.

European countries are still struggling to achieve gender balance in decision-making, according to a new Council of Europe (CoE) report.

The report, entitled, "Balanced participation of women and men in decision-making," states that participation of women in Serbia's public and political life is above European average in most cases, except when it comes to the number of women mayors.

Greece ranks last among European Union member-states in terms of gender equality, according to an annual index compiled by the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) that was made public on Wednesday.

UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova met with French First Lady Brigitte Macron, reports vevesti. 

They discussed topics such as the role of women in the modern world, gender equality, the importance of peace-building education and conflict resolution, and the prevention of radicalization of young people.

After two years of drafting and an early withdrawal from procedure, Serbia should get a new law on gender equality this fall, Beta has reported.

One of its provisions will be 40-percent quotas for women in state bodies of administration and leadership, Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Zorana Mihajlovic announced on August 23.

In an effort to crack down on sexism in the workplace, the General Secretariat for Gender Equality is preparing a TV advertisement aimed at raising public awareness about the issue, and to explain what sort of behavior is considered harassment.