Gender equality
With 17 Sustainable Development Goals, the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development sets out areas in which Liechtenstein is seeking to make progress. In the 2019 country report “Sustainability in Liechtenstein”, the government lists eight priorities for increased engagement. For example, action is particularly needed on item 5 “Gender equality”, with the Association for Human Rights (VMRG) in particular pointing out the urgency of measures to improve the reconciliation of family and work. By law, the VMRG has been the UN human rights institution in Liechtenstein since 2017. In recent decades, Liechtenstein has gradually eliminated statutory discrimination between men and women and established legal equality. The Liechtenstein Constitution stipulates in Art. 31 para. 2 that men and women have equal rights. The Gender Equality Act (GEA) of March 1999 guarantees legal protection for girls and women against discrimination in employment relationships governed by private and public law. However, women are significantly less likely to hold leadership positions in professional life than men. In 2015, over 40 per cent of men held executive positions, but only just over 20 per cent of women. The median wage of women in 2016 was about 85 per cent of that of men.
In October 2021, the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, the Istanbul Convention, entered into force in Liechtenstein. Its purpose is to protect women from all forms of violence and to help to eliminate all forms of discrimination, as well as to promote the empowerment of women.
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