Analysis provided by: Soraya Pascoe, Legal Expert on Gender

More

Switzerland's constitutional guarantees for equality and its federal equality legislation belie the slowness with which equality is being implemented. For example it was only in 1971 that Swiss women were given the vote.

Switzerland ratified CEDAW in 1997 and concerns were raised by the Committee about Switzerland's legal institutions and the lack of progress in equality. Indeed it was the structure of the Swiss state which was considered a hindrance to this progress.

Swiss government is on three levels, federal, canton and commune. While there is Constitutional law and Federal law, the 26 cantons have their own political and judicial organisations in which a substantial amount of power is invested.

Switzerland on the other hand has specific bodies at governmental level which deal with the issue of gender equality and mainstreaming. For example the Federal Commission for Women's issues was founded in 1976 and is an extra parliamentary body appointed by the Swiss Federal Council. Its aims include achieving equality between men and women in public life across the Swiss Confederation. To this end it has adopted a mentoring project aimed at potential female parliamentary candidates, allowing them to shadow politicians and motivate young women to engage in political life.

Its other aims are to promote new legislation to bring about equality and positive change to the status of women. It has taken a position on domestic violence and in a paper drafted in January 2004, it has recommended canton wide measures to be adopted to equip police and both the criminal and civil jurisdictions with legal powers to act effectively in domestic violence situations.

While this body has no legislative power of its own, it is anticipated that its recommendations will form the basis of new legislation in the area of domestic violence which is very noticeably lacking at present. Indeed the adoption of new legal powers and laws are necessary in order to be compliant with its obligations according with CEDAW.

Inequality is also evident in the family jurisdiction, notwithstanding the omission of domestic violence legislation, by the way in which a wife is legally obliged to adopt her husband's name at marriage.

However, where Switzerland has taken steps to reduce inequality and promote equality, it has done so comprehensively. This is none the more evident than in the field of employment. Here not only is discrimination, both direct and indirect legislated against, it also covers the career pattern of an employee from recruitment stage to promotion stage. Even more comprehensive are the maternity protection laws which protect not only the pregnant employee, it also protects the nursing mother and the parent of school age children, regardless in this case, of gender.

The laws for the health and safety of the pregnant woman or nursing mothers are extremely prescriptive and interventionist. The employers are under strict obligation as to the employment terms and the presence of medical monitoring and reporting means that in the practical application, the Confederation is the determinant of whether an individual employee can work in a given job during ante and post natal periods.

Hide