Women in 15 nations need spouse's okay to work: report
At least 15 countries give husbands the power to prevent their wives from working, the World Bank said today in a report on gender equality in business. "Many societies have made progress, gradually moving to dismantle ingrained forms of discrimination against women. Yet a great deal remains to be done," said World Bank President Jim Yong Kim in the preface to the report.
Among 143 countries covered in the report "Women, Business and the Law 2014", 15 - including Iran, Syria, Bolivia and Gabon - give men the right to object to and prevent their wives from taking jobs. In 79 countries, laws restrict the kind of work women can do, the report said. "The most extensive restrictions on women's employment are in Eastern Europe and Central Asia," the report said.
In the Republic of Guinea, it said, a wife can fight her husband's decision in court, but she must prove that it is unjustified to have his decision overturned. Such rules remain in part due to history. "Vestiges of history remain codified in certain economies simply because legislation such as the Code Napoleon was adopted wholesale and not regularly reviewed or updated. "The notion of head of household, for example, was removed from France's Civil Code in 1970 but persists in many civil codes throughout West Africa."
In Russia, women are banned from 456 professions, including drivers of farm trucks, conducting freight trains and woodworking. Many of those rules were inherited from the former communist regime of the Soviet Union and were left unchanged. One result, the report said, was that the Russian Federation had a high earnings difference between genders during the transition to a market economy.
Read more at: http://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/women-in-15-nations-need-spouse-s-okay-to-work-report-113092500024_1.html
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