GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – (#agriculture #women) Women’s agricultural production is an average 25 percent lower in developing countries than that of male farmers, the first-ever Global Conference on Women in Agriculture says, in a call for greater gender equity in agriculture as a means to combat world hunger.
Forty-three percent of agriculture in developing countries is done by women, but access to property ownership, know-how, technology and even basic such as fertilizers is more limited than for men.
The international conference in New Dehli this week has emphasized the impact on of this disparity in fighting the world’s growing food crisis.
Government ministers, farmers, agricultural researchers and gender experts from around the world met for the to discuss ways of achieving greater equality in agriculture.
“The global sidelining of women farmers puts our food security at great risk,” says Mark Holderness, executive secretary for the Global Forum on Agricultural Research.
The UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) calculates that boosting women’s farm production could increase output in developing countries by 2.5- 4 percent, reducing poverty by 12-17 percent, representing 100 to 150 million people. There are some 925 million undernourished people globally, according to the World Food Program.
Natural disasters, the financial crisis, political conflicts, over-use of land, increasing production of land for biofuel production are some of the factors straining food production as the world’s population is estimated to increase to 9 billion by 2012.
Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The second annual “Women and Children First” award given by the US Embassy in Bern to honour leaders “who make a difference for women and girls” was given to Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold Tuesday evening 6 March.
Vermot-Mangold is an expert in African development issues, a former member of the Swiss parliament (1995-2007) and of the Council of Europe, and she is currently the co-chair of 1000 PeaceWomen Across the Globe.
The organization was a driving force behind the award of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 to three women: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman, following its action in 2005 to collectively nominate 1,000 women for the Nobel Prize. The group pointed out that since the creation of the prize in 1909 only 12 women had received it.
“Recognition of women’s important role in conflict situations has long been overdue. The fact that three women won this year is a harvest for Ruth, who has been tireless in working for unsung women heroes for years,” noted Megan Beyer in handing over the award.
Beyer, a journalist, is wife of US Ambassador to Switzerland Donald Beyer. The award is named after his grandmother, Clara Mortensen Beyer, who worked for the first woman in the US cabinet, US Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins. Grandmother Beyer in her later years studied child labour worldwide and helped create US child labour laws.
The award was given at a dinner in Bern that opened a 7 March bilateral women leaders conference, “Sister Republics: Building Bridges – an action plan for women’s leadership”.
Ertherin Cousin
Private sector and government leaders from the two countries will look at the situation of women in the workplace in particular, comparing the Swiss and US experiences to create an action plan for improvement.
The group includes several ambassadors, a number of women who have held top White House positions, the Swiss federal chancellor, women CEOs and women in top positions in non-governmental organizations.
Ertharin Cousin, who 17 January was named director of the World Food Programme, the largest humanitarian aid organization in the world, spoke at the awards ceremony, noting that 925 million people do not have enough to eat and 98 percent of them live in developing countries.
The figure is daunting, she said, but it can be reduced, if women create a movement to do it.
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss Federal Statistical Offices new figures for average earnings in Switzerland show women making barely any progress in catching up with men for equal pay. The average salary in 2010 was CHF5,979, but the spread was large: women made on average CHF5221 and men CHF6,397.
Differences are explained to some extent by different qualification levels and years of service, but women account for the vast majority of fulltime workers who earn less than CHF4,000 a month, in part because 66 percent of women work either in retail sales or the hotel and restaurant industry, in jobs with low skills required.
10% of workers, senior managers, earn CHF22,755/month
Nearly 11 percent of workers make less than CHF4,000 a month, while 10 percent, top-level managers, make more than CHF22,755 a month.
The new figures show that the most qualified workers saw their salaries increase by 12.3 percent during the past decade, 2000-2010, while the least qualified workers saw their pay go up by 9 percent.
Management paychecks vary enormously depending on the industry: CHF14,919 in insurance, CHF16,724 in banking, CHF17,156 in pharmaceuticals, CHF22,000 in the tobacco industry. The same level of qualification pays on average CHF10,324 in the machine industry, CHF9,750 in healthcare and CHF8,138 in construction.
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Swiss companies were expected by the government to jump at the chance to review their salaries using a new federal programme starting in 2009, to ensure equal pay for equal work. Fewer than 20 a year have signed up, far short of the 100 companies the government expected to see within five years.
A 19.6 percent difference in pay between men and women remains, a spread the voluntary salary review programme has done little to change, Swiss Justice and Police Minister Simonetta Sommaruga said Monday.
Girls have made it onto Swiss kids' football teams, but that doesn't guarantee equal pay
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Switzerland is stuck at number 10 in the world’s gender gap rankings, published 10 October by the World Economic Forum in Geneva, with equal pay for men and women as one of the sticking points.
Friday 10 November the country will observe “Futur en tous genres” to encourage boys and girls to consider all kinds of training and professional work without linking certain kinds of jobs to one gender or the other.
The day replaces what used to be “girl’s day”, designed to help girls focus on broader career options.
The new focus is designed to ensure that boys also take time to reflect on gender and roles in the workplace, says Geneva’s associate director for equality in the canton’s Department of Public Instruction, Franceline Dupenloup, in an interview in Les Quotidiennes (Fr).
Down near the cellar for equal pay: Switzerland ranks number 80
Source: Swiss Federal Statistical Office
Switzerland has made great strides in the WEF rankings ( WEF page on Switzerland, pdf) in recent years, moving from 40th place in 2007 to 14, then 13 and last year to 10.
And there it sits, for the WEF rankings are based on five sets of criteria: economic empowerment, education, marriage and childbearing, social institutions and political rights, childbearing ecosystem.
The WEF rankings show the US improving, France worsening and few changes in the top 10 compared to a year earlier. The Philippines stepped ahead of Lesotho, swapping slots 8 and 9, and Ireland stepped in front of New Zealand, swapping places 5 and 6.
The Swiss are number one for literacy and enrollment in tertiary education, but the country is down at number 80 for equal pay, which government statistics show to be about 20 percent lower for women, with little change in sight.
Women in ministerial positions: Switzerland ranks 7, and it is this category that boosted the country when two and then three women joined the cabinet of seven in the past four years. And since the WEF rankings are dollar-based and the franc is strong, Switzerland benefits for the category of estimated earned income (PPP US$), where it ranks fourth.
More women, 60.8%, are working and fewer men, 75.2%
Swiss statistics show women slowly but surely taking a larger role in the workplace and as their numbers grow, their influence on the earnings picture could carry weight, although there is no clear sign yet that this is starting to happen.
Federal statistics show that in 1991, the rate for women ages 15 and up who were working or unemployed was 56.8 percent. This has risen, mostly steadily, and by 2010 the figure was 60.8 percent. At the peak, in the 20-25 age group, 80.7 percent of all women are working. The figure for men 20-25 is 92.6%.
From ages 30 to 50 the rate for women remains virtually unchanged, hovering between 77 and 79 percent in 2000 and now between 81 and 86 percent, with the lowest level between ages 30 and 39. Women appear to be working longer before taking time off for young families, and going back to work sooner.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The massive flooding that has affected large areas of Pakistan for months is straining humanitarian agencies budgets, stretched thin by falling donor contributions as economies weaken. Care International Thursday issued a plea for more funding despite the economic situation, for a particularly vulnerable group, pregnant women.
The Geneva group notes that “of the more than five million people currently affected by the floods in Sindh, approximately 143,750 of them are pregnant women. Of these, 15 percent—or 21,562 women—will need medical treatment for obstetric complications.” The aid group says that women and children need a range of services, from family planning to the prevention and treatment of sexual violence, clean delivery services, and emergency obstetric and newborn care.
Care notes that to date only 22 percent of the promised funding for the emergency in Pakistan has come through, and the situation is desperate:
”Privacy’ is a serious health issue for women, particularly pregnant and lactating women. ‘They are trapped, exposed on the roadside, and there are no private latrines, [Dr Malik Umair, Senior Health Advisor] Umair says.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Yemen’s President’s latest in a string of statements that he will quit is being met with skepticism by opposition leaders, as protests continue in the country, one of Africa’s poorest, with a high percentage of young people. President Ali Abdullah Saleh, 69, has ruled the country for three decades. Over the weekend he said he would step down “within days” but that remark is now being softened by government officials.
Protests have continued unabated despite attacks on protesters and the latest, in Taiz on Sunday, saw 22 women injured when Saleh supporters reportedly hit them with batons and threw rocks. Several large groups of women throughout the country, inspired by the award last week of a Nobel peace prize to Yemeni human rights activist Tawakkol Karman, marched and called for the president to resign.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, president of Liberia (photo: A. Cruz/ABr.)
Leymah Gbowee
Tawakkul Karman
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 goes to three women, two from Liberia and one from Yemen, for their “non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work”: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karma. The first two are from Liberia and the third from Yemen.
“We cannot achieve democracy and lasting peace in the world unless women obtain the same opportunities as men to influence developments at all levels of society” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said in its press release about the award. It notes that UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1325 in 2000, making violence against woman an “international security issue”.
The committee, in announcing the coveted award, described the role of the three, who will share the $100,000 prize in equal parts:
“Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is Africa’s first democratically elected female president. Since her inauguration in 2006, she has contributed to securing peace in Liberia, to promoting economic and social development, and to strengthening the position of women. Leymah Gbowee mobilized and organized women across ethnic and religious dividing lines to bring an end to the long war in Liberia, and to ensure women’s participation in elections. She has since worked to enhance the influence of women in West Africa during and after war. In the most trying circumstances, both before and during the ‘Arab spring’, Tawakkul Karman has played a leading part in the struggle for women’s rights and for democracy and peace in Yemen.”
The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded 91 times since 1901, with no award in some years. The prize has been shared by three persons on only one other occasion, in 1994, when it was given jointly to Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin.
Only 12 of the 97 Nobel Laureats in the past were women.
The prize was awarded in Oslo, Norway. The founder of the Nobel Prize, Alfred Nobel, was Swedish. In his will, he declared that the Nobel Peace Prize should be awarded by a Norwegian committee. When Alfred Nobel was alive, Norway and Sweden were united under one monarch, until 1905 when Norway became an independent kingdom.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Saudi Arabia’s Kind Abdullah Sunday 25 September granted women the right to vote in municipal elections, starting in 2015, in one of the most dramatic legal changes in the country in recent years. Women will not be able to vote in upcoming elections and there is some concern that the king’s edict will hit opposition that will further delay its implementation.
Women do not have the right to drive and appeals to the king to change this law have not yet met with success.
Ikea (here: Geneva) is one of Switzerland's many international companies
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss federal government’s tool for companies to check if their remuneration programmes respect the law on equal pay is now available in English, Bern announced Tuesday 28 June.
Logib, which was downloaded 3,700 times in 2010, was difficult for international companies, Swiss-based or foreign, to use because there was no English version.
“Logib makes it easy for companies to establish to what extent they respect an equal pay policy. They can then decide if they need to carry out a more thorough analysis with the help of experts,” the Federal Department of Home Affairs says in a statement.
It notes that other countries have expressed interest in the tool, and it has been adopted by Germany and Luxembourg.
Switzerland is a party to several international agreements on equal pay for equal work for men and women; companies are also required to make a public statement that they respect the principle of equal pay.
Paint the world red, Blood Donor day slogan (photo: Oliver O'Hanlon/WHO)
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The jet d’eau, Geneva’s famous water fountain, ran red 14 June to mark World Blood Donor day, but beyond the colourful display and other events, The World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva marked the day by releasing new global data which shows that 70 percent of volunteer, unpaid blood donors are men. The average age is higher in wealthier countries, 44, compared to developing countries, average age 25. The last figure is explained partly by these countries’ younger populations, says the WHO.
Progress is being made in getting more people to donate blood, with the number of countries getting all their blood supplies from voluntary, unpaid donors seeing a 50 percent increase from 2002 to 2008. India was the country with the most impressive progress in 2010: the number of donors rose from 3.6 million to 4.6m.
Pink picnics in Carouge were part of the strike for equal pay for women 14 June (photo: USS trade union)
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – It was mostly work as usual for women in Switzerland 14 June, a day marked for a strike to protest the 20 percent less that women earn, across the board.
Small groups gathered in several places and some of them notably blew pink whistles at 14:06 to mark the 20th anniversary of the strike for equality for women. 20 Minutes reports a record crowd of 1,000 in Geneva, 500 at Place de la Riponne in Lausanne and far smaller numbers in German-speaking Switzerland.
USS, one of the country’s main trade unions, gave a figure of 100,000 who participated in the day’s events.
The reality of the difference in salaries is well documented, according to both the Swiss Statistical Office in Neuchatel and the Bern-based Federal Office for Gender Equality, the FOGE (2009 report).
In 2006, a year that served for several studies, women earned 24 percent less than men on average, for a salary difference of CHF1,747 a month. Some 60 percent of this could be explained, by differences in qualifications, for example, but 40 percent is considered discriminatory under Swiss law, leaving women earning CHF700 a month less, for the same work with the same qualifications, on average.
Married women who work earn 31 percent less, in part because more women are in part-time jobs, where the pay is often lower: 13 percent of men work part-time, but 57 percent of women work part-time.
Women in professional positions also earn 31 percent less, in part, according to government studies, because men tend to be paid higher bonuses and other add-ons to salaries.
The FOGE provides a self-test, online, to check salary discrimination, and offers suggestions for how to ensure you are paid correctly.
Net monthly salary by age and gender, 2009 (source: Swiss Statistical Office)
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The two women, ages 34 and 37, whose bodies were found shortly after 08:30 Tuesday 31 May in the Geisendorf Park in Geneva (between rue de la Servette and rue de Lyon), were known to Geneva’s narcotics agents, police say. The two were stretched out on the ground, with no sign of the involvement of a third party, and police say they may have died from an overdose. An investigation has been opened.
They two bodies were discovered by passersby.
Parking, driving restrictions in place
Geneva Marathon routes, 15 May (click on image to view larger)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Drivers beware: the frequently snarled traffic in Geneva’s city centre and paucity of parking places could be worse than usual this weekend, with the Geneva Marathon for Unicef running. Use public transport if you’re a runner or spectator, as the lakefront area’s parking will not be available.
A record number of runners from 90 countries are entered, and the city centre was already buzzing Friday, with the registration centre for runners opening on the Quai Wilson.
The races start Saturday 14 May with 800 women and 400 children running in La Genevoise, a 6km race exclusively for women, and the four Kids Runs for children ages 6 to 13.
The half-marathon and marathon take place Sunday, with 1,100 and 3,300 runners respectively.
The focal point will be the Marathon Village that opened Friday in front of the Hotel Wilson, a centre for runners and their guests, as well as the general public.
Village opening hours are:
• Friday 13 May from 16:00 to 20:00
• Saturday 14 May from 09:00 to 19:00
• Sunday 15 May from 10:00 to 16:00 (but no bib will be given out on that day)
The starts for the Geneva Marathon for Unicef races:
Saturday 14 May 2011
- La Genevoise: Start at 14:00 (Quai Wilson)
- Kids Runs (Quai Wilson):
Start 15:10 (12-13 years old)
Start 15:50 (10-11 years old)
Start 16:20 (8-9 years old)
Start 16:40 (6-7 years old)
Sunday 15 May 2011
- Marathon: Start 8:30 (Chêne-Bourg)
- Half-Marathon: Start 10:30 (Chêne-Bourg).
Young Swiss residents: not as likely to live to a ripe old age as their women friends
Neuchatel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The Swiss resident population in 2010 reached 7,866,500, an increase of 80,700, according to preliminary figures published by the Swiss Statistical Office in Neuchatel 28 April.
The 1 percent annual growth was comparable to the previous year’s. It includes the Swiss population as well as all resident foreigners except those with short-term permits, 56,600 and people seeking asylum, 5,600 persons.
“This statistic, greatly improved in quality, is part of the new, register-based population census system and provides more precise details than the previous Annual Population Statistics,” notes the SSO.
The federal government announced in December 2010 that it is moving to an annual census and will rely far more heavily than in the past on communal and cantonal population registers, which have been harmonizing the data they gather.
Switzerland now has 1,300 people over the age of 100 and figures show that this population has doubled every 10 years since 1950. The longer lifespan of women is clearly evident here, with women accounting for 1,100 of the people over age 100.
Number of foreigners continues to climb
The number of foreigners living permanently in Switzerland rose to 1,766,400 in 2010, an increase of 52,400, to comprise 22.5 percent of the population.
The percentage at the end of 2009 was 22 percent, but the increase is due in part to the way in which data is produced under the new statistics/census system, and to changing notions of population.
More people over 65 than under 20
The population under age 20 comprises 20.8 percent of the total and those age 65 or over, 1.3 million persons, are 16.9 percent. People of working age account for 62.2 percent of the Swiss population.
Boys outnumber girls slightly under age 20 but the male population declines gradually until the number of men and women is the same, in the 55-59 age group. Women then steadily outnumber men in a growing proportion: the ages 84-89 group has twice as many women as men.
The census included the following groups:
- Swiss whose permanent residence is Switzerland
- Foreigners with residence permits of at least 12 months (B, C and Foreign Affairs Department permits: international organization workers, diplomats and members of their families)
- Foreigners with a short-term residence permit (L) for a cumulative stay of at least 12 months
- asylum-seekers (F and N permits) whose total length of stay in Switzerland is at least 12 months.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A woman in the Lake Geneva area in the past week had her bank card stolen and CHF15,000 withdrawn from her bank account while someone helped her change the flat tire, police in canton Vaud say.
They are warning women in particular to be on the alert for a flat tire scam that has had several victims in recent days in parking lots around Lausanne and the La Cote region.
The scam generally begins with the woman, whose car has been identified, being watched while she pays for shopping or gets cash out of the bank. One of the thieves notes her bank card code while the other, in the parking lot, lets the air out of one of her tires.
When she returns and sees the flat, he offers to help her change it. His accomplice, meanwhile, slips just her bank card out of her bag, often left lying on the passenger seat in the car, so she is not immediately aware it is missing.
Women who stay home will have their work recognized by the UK’s retirement system if the British Work and Pensions Secretary has his way, reports the Telegraph. Iain Duncan Smith is expected to unveil the outline of a government scheme that would simplify the basic state pension, possibly giving everyone £140 a week if one of the plans under study is accepted. The Telegraph notes that “under existing rules, eligibility for a state pension is based on the number of years of paid work someone does. Women often fail to qualify for a full pension because they take time out to raise children.”
Government figures suggest that women are, on average, £2,000 a year worse off than men once they retire.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swiss voters are turning in their ballots to decide on tightening regulations covering firearms. Many of them are doing so Friday using local commune’s special ballot boxes before they head for the mountains, rather than turning up in person to vote Sunday 13 February.
The popular referendum is supported by Socialists and Greens but no other major parties, nor does the federal government back it. The “initiative” as referendums are called, calls for a national gun registry to replace the current cantonal registries, and for military guns to be kept centrally, rather than in homes.
International media are turning the spotlight on the vote as Sunday draws nearer, often (incorrectly) drawing a parallel with US arms discussions: the Swiss debate is not over the right to bear arms, but the responsibility that goes with bearing them. The Swiss militia obligation for citizens to have firearms is accompanied by the legal obligation to practice shooting regularly.
The vote would not change this obligation, both to bear arms and to use them responsibly, but it would shift how information about gun-owners is kept and where the firearms reside.
Head of a tiger (Panthera tigris), India (photo: ©2010 Vivek R Sinh, WWF-Canon)
Update 8 February Nyon / Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Three women, student volunteers who were working as part of a WWF project in the eastern Assam province in India, have been released by their kidnappers, WWF-India announced Tuesday 8 February. Three men, also students, were abducted at the same time, and they remain captive.
The six were “abducted from an area near Ultapani in Chirang Reserve Forest on the afternoon of Sunday, February 6, 2011,” the WWF statement says. “These young volunteers were part of the WWF team carrying out tiger habitat occupancy surveys in the area. These young and committed individuals were working towards helping to conserve the important biodiversity of the area for the larger benefit of the local community, the state and the region. Conservation is an apolitical activity that contributes to the well being of people, society and nature.”
WWF-India earlier confirmed to the head office in Gland, near Geneva, that it has been informed that the abducted group is safe:
“The NGO community in Assam has appealed for the safe and immediate release of these volunteers. They have stated that “These volunteers are innocent students from our own native state and educational institutions . . .The NGOs hope that good sense will prevail and the volunteers will be immediately released unharmed in order to enable the civil society organisations and their workers to contribute towards nature conservation . . . especially for the communities living in and around the forested areas.”
The region has seen several kidnappings and killings by three main rebel groups of people who are working to protect nature. The WWF group was reportedly separated by the captors from another nature protection organization: the two had been working together.
A government official has said a “major operation” is currently underway to free those kidnapped. The nationalities of the three men and three women is not known.
The world’s tiger population has fallen from 100,000 to just 3,200 in the past century, with WWF fighting to get governments to back its efforts to save the animals.
Video, India’s IBN TV
Bangladesh will face Pakistan on the 16th Asian Games women’s final 19 November.
China, the host country, was defeated by Bangladesh 17 November on a nine-wicket, while Pakistan defeated Japan, also on nine wickets, 16 November.
Links to other sites: Malaysia Star, official website of the 16th Asian Games
12 November Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A man hung himself from a tree early Thursday morning 11 November in central Geneva, near the Swiss federal compensation office building, the Tribune de Geneve reports, noting that no details have been released by Geneva police. A spokesman for the Disability Insurance Office for insured people living abroad (OAIE) told GenevaLunch he is unable to confirm whether or not the man had a link with the office, as a GenevaLunch reader (see comment below) suggested early Friday.
The suicide caused a stir in the neighbourhood, according to the Tribune, in part because the body was initially easily visible, before police put a tent around it. The area where the man died, on avenue Edmond-Vaucher, is close to a school and at 07:20, when the body was discovered, the neighbourhood starts to get busier.
Ten days earlier another man took his own life near the offices of canton Geneva, with whom he had had a long-running dispute.
Some 1,500 people commit suicide each year in Switzerland, according to federal statistics, with the rate falling since 1980. Canton Geneva records about 75 a year, with 48 men and 30 women committing suicide in 2007, the most recent year for which figures are available.
Suicide prevention and information in Geneva, Stop Suicide (Fre)
Geneva-Servette Hockey Club players, here training, are more fit than the average person in Switzerland
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland takes the country’s health pulse once every five years, and the 2010 results, published 2 November, show too many Swiss remain overweight, at 34 percent of the population, with 8 percent considered obese. Only two in five persons has an adequate level of exercise. That said, the Swiss generally consider themselves to be in good health, 87 percent. The weight and exercise figures might be higher than health authorities would like, but the reassuring news is that the Swiss national waistline has stopped expanding.
The number of overweight people in Switzerland grew steadily from 1990 to 2002, up from 30 percent of the population, but since 2002 it has remained stable at 37 percent.
Other key findings of the survey, based on questionnaires given to 18,760 individuals residing in Switzerland:
But 1,000 women die a day: numbers must fall further, say UN agencies
Maternal health care, Sierre Leone (photo: UN / H Bigur)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Maternal deaths are falling worldwide, down by 34 percent since 1990, shows a new multi- agency report published 15 September. Some 358,000 women died during or from complications related to childbirth in 2008, down from 546,000 18 years earlier.
The fall is commendable, notes the World Health Organization (WHO), which is one of the author agencies, but the rate of decline is less than half of that needed to meet the Millennium Development Goal of a 75 percent reduction in maternal deaths between 1990 and 2015.
The report was published jointly by WHO, the UN Children’s Fund (Unicef), the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and the World Bank.
Pregnant women still die from four major causes, according to the report: severe bleeding after childbirth, infections, hypertensive disorders, and unsafe abortions. About 1,000 women died due to these complications every day in 2008. Of these, 570 lived in sub-Saharan Africa, 300 in South Asia and five in high-income countries.
Federal office says 20% salary difference argument for age change only with social benefits change
Retiring in peace in Switzerland, but at what age, for women?
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The Swiss Federal Commission for Women’s Issues said Tuesday 14 September that it is opposed to raising the retirement age for women to 65 unless the change is accompanied by a major increase in social benefits for women. It cites a persistant overall salary difference, with men earning 20 percent more than women in Switzerland.
Men receive full retirement benefits starting at age 65 and women at age 62. The lower house of parliament will, for the final time, review a revision to the AVS (social security, including retirement benefits) system during its autumn session.
The revision calls for men and women to be given equal treatment, thus raising the benefits age for women. Concern over equality alone is not enough to warrant the change, says the commission.
An informant who in 1999 told Vancouver police a second-hand story about Robert Pickton butchering a woman and storing body parts at his pig farm in western Canada recounted the story publicly for the first time Monday 23 August on CTV News. Pickton was convicted in 2007 of murdering six women, a grisly saga that gripped the nation during his trial. Leah Best, in her 50s, heard the story from a close friend who said she witnessed Pickton cutting body parts. The friend, who received money from Pickton for drugs, refused to acknowledge the story to police and she was not initially considered a reliable witness. Once Pickton was arrested, in 2002, she gave police details and became a star witness in his mass murder trial.
Best, on television Monday, said she believes some of the women could have been spared had Vancouver police acted on the information she gave them. Pickton, age 61, told an undercover police agent he had killed 49 women, and he was charged with the deaths of 20 women in addition to the six murder convictions for which he is spending life in prison, with no possibility of parole for 25 years (Canada’s harshest sentence).
Links to other sites: CTV News, The Globe & Mail
The unpopular practice in British hospitals of putting men and women in the same wards will be stopped by the end of 2010, except in emergency and intensive care areas, the coalition government’s health minister is expected to announce this week, according to UK media. Despite complaints about the shared wards the Labour government struggled unsuccessfully for over 10 years to end the practice, and today it called the new government’s likely move an “empty gesture”.
OWIT, formerly GWIT professional tips event, 18:30-21:30
Location: Hotel de la Paix
Link out: http://www.gwit.ch
Date: 24 Jun 2010
Boys and men need to learn to look after their skin, says Cancer Research UK, which says new research shows UK deaths from skin cancer in men over 65 soaring. “Death rates in men over 65 have risen shockingly from 4.5 per 100,000 to 15.2 per 100,000 since the late 70s” from malignant melanoma, a largely preventable disease, says the organization. The rate of diagnosis is higher for women, who tend to have skin problems looked at earlier, but the death rate for men far outstrips that of women, which is on the rise, but from 1.1 per 100,000 in the 1970s to 2.2 today.
Basel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Novartis has been told to pay $3.3 million to 12 women in compensatory damages in the US, for gender discrimination at Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp, a US division of the Basel-based company. Punitive damages are to be announced later and will cover a larger group. The women, employees at the company, started a class-action lawsuit in 2004, saying they were victims of discrimination at work, paid less and promoted less often.
Sion, Valais, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A Valais woman who was training to beat the women’s world record for scuba diving has died in Egypt. Brigitte Lenoir, 40, of Monthey, was training at Dahab when the accident occurred Friday 14 May, at -147 metres, as she was surfacing after a dive to -200m. Her body has not been found. A faulty valve is suspected to have caused the accident, but details are still sketchy. She was planning to attempt the record-breaking dive in August. The current freshwater record is -221m.
