This is the first country to make it illegal for men to be paid more

diamond hope

January 12, 2018 12:57 PM

Iceland has become the first country to pass a law that makes it illegal for men to be paid more than women.

On January 1, 2018, Iceland had a law come into effect which makes it the first country in the world to make it illegal for men to be paid more than women.

Iceland began 2018 by the introduction of a law which is in line with the worldwide aim of many human right groups and feminist activists who are trying to close a pay gap that exists in almost every country around the world.

Companies and agencies that employ over 25 people will need to obtain a Government certification of their equal-pay policies or face excessive fines under this new law.

The law outrightly bans pay discrimination on the basis of gender and forms part of the government's plans to completely eradicate the gender wage gap by 2020.

Dagny Osk Aradottir Pind who is a board member of the Icelandic Women's Rights Association describes it as a "mechanism to ensure women and men are being paid equally."

She also went on to say, "We have had legislation saying that pay should be equal for men and women for decades now but we still have a pay gap. I think that now people are starting to realize that this is a systematic problem that we have to tackle with new methods."

"Women have been talking about this for decades and I really feel that we have managed to raise awareness. "We have managed to get to the point that people realize that the legislation we have had in place is not working, and we need to do something more," said Pind.

Over the course of 9 years, Iceland has been ranked by the World Economic Forum (WEF) as the most gender-equal country in the world followed closely by Norway, Finland, Rwanda, and Sweden.

Yemen is the lowest-ranked of the 144 countries in the Global Gender Gap Report, which uses the economic opportunity, political empowerment, health and survival to measure inequality.

Other countries ranking are Nigeria, 121; Ghana, 64; Zimbabwe, 52; United States 51 and Kenya, 68.

diamond hope