Iceland's Prime Minister on Strike for Equal Rights

Thousands of Icelandic women demonstrated in the streets on Tuesday. Not since the 70s have there been similar protests for women's issues in Iceland.

Iceland's Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir stood alongside, supporting the sisterhood for the fight to equal pay. She has also encouraged other government employees to stop working that day. Jakobsdóttir did not call a cabinet meeting and said that she expected other women in the cabinet to strike.

The fight for equal rights is close to PM's heart. Last Thursday, she opened the international conference, the Arctic Circle Assembly, in Reykjavik, saying that she sees an alarming trend "which is the systematic erosion of basic human rights".

300 years behind

"I can mention the situation for women's rights in Afghanistan and Iran, where gender persecution and gender apartheid are a grim reality. This is consistent with a disturbing fact that is so clear to me after being in New York at the UN General Assembly, that Sustainable Development Goal 5 on gender equality is moving so slowly that, according to estimates, it will take 300 years to ensure equal rights between women and men", said Jakobsdottir.

"Now if we think about how it was 300 years ago, it was the year 1723. And are we going to wait another 300 years to achieve equality? Is that acceptable to us as a world? My answer is very clear; it is not acceptable, and equality is also the key to meaningful climate action", the PM said from stage.

She spoke passionately about meaningful climate action and the need to tackle gender inequality to get there.

24 hour strike

"It is of course an incredible situation in 2023, that we still have a gender-based pay gap", said Katrín Jakobsdóttir to Vísir.

The strike lasted for 24 hours from midnight Tuesday to midnight Wednesday. It affected large parts of the Icelandic society, writes national broadcaster RÚV.

The gender pay gap was in the foreground of the strike, but so is the fight against gender-based violence. Another of struggle is women's unpaid work, such as child care and housework - but also the responsibility, supervision and project management, which is called the third shift.

The UN's sustainability goals

This is the sixth women's strike since Women's Day in 1975 and the longest since then, or in 48 years.

In her Arctic Circle speech, Jakobsdottir said the world must deal with hunger and poverty, which are still widespread in many parts of the world, creating social unrest, forced migration and a breeding ground for authoritarian rule.

"So when we talk about meaningful climate action, we cannot just talk about the environment. We have to talk about all the UN's sustainability goals."

The growing autocracies

Ten years ago, she said she could not have foreseen a large-scale war breaking out in Europe. Nor preceded by the undermining of human rights democracy and the rule of law both in democracies and in the face of growing autocracies.

"And we certainly did not imagine that women's rights could be rolled back in many places in the world, including in mature democracies."

The massive strike in Iceland, led by the Prime Minister, did not go unnoticed by the world media. It was covered by the New York Times, BBC og The Guardian.

To RUV Jakobsdottir said that she hopes to inpire the fight for gender equality all over the world.

"Even though full equality has not been achieved in Iceland, we are of course ahead in an international comparison."