Two Icelanders In Gender Equality Top 100

Two Icelanders – both of whom hold (or held) political office – have made the cut for Apolitical’s Gender Equality Top 100.

Apolitical, a self-described “global network for government”, has just released their Gender Equality Top 100. The list is compiled from nominations from around the world, with the aim to “celebrate the people making our societies fairer and better to live in”.

One of the Icelanders who made the list is Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir. She is crediting with having “made Iceland the first country in the world to make it illegal to pay men more than women for the same job,” referring to a law introduced by Þorsteinn Víglundsson of the Reform Party, who served as the Minister of Social Affairs and Equality in 2017.

The other Icelander credited with “making our societies fairer and better to live in” is Hanna Birna Kristjánsdóttir, saying she “worked to improve gender equality in Iceland”. Missing from this bio is the fact that her ministry leaked a memo to select members of the press containing falsehoods and misinformation about Nigerian asylum seeker Tony Omos in 2014, when he was deported, separating him from his children and their mother.

In the wake of this, she actively interfered in police investigations into the leak and spoke untruthfully to Parliament about the matter, generating public outcry before she ultimately resigned.