Iceland women strikers demand equal pay

Tens of thousands of women in Iceland, including the prime minister, walked off the job on Tuesday to demand equal pay and protest violence against women, organizers said.

Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir "will not attend to official duties and in that regard today's scheduled cabinet meeting has been moved to tomorrow," her office told Agence France-Presse.

The protest day called "Kvennafri" (Women's Day Off) has been called six times since 1975 but Tuesday was only the second time that organizers made it a full-day strike, Steinunn Rognvaldsdottir, one of the organizers, said.

The average wage gap between men and women in the Nordic country was 10.2 percent in 2021, according to Statistics Iceland.

Iceland already tops a World Economic Forum ranking for gender equality, but organizers said the country needed to make even more progress and lead by example.