WASHINGTON — Women in India are not allowed to work in mining or in jobs that require lifting weights above a certain threshold or working with glass, according to a latest World Bank report on South Asia's largest economy.
"In India, the region's largest economy with 612 million women, job restrictions remain widespread, with women not allowed to work in mining or in jobs that require lifting weights above a certain threshold or working with glass," the World Bank Group's 'Women, Business and the Law 2016' report released today said.
"The law also prohibits women from jobs 'involving danger to life, health or morals," it added.
In addition, the report said, in India there are no laws to protect women against sexual harassment in public places, protections which exist in 18 other economies around the world.
In the last two years, India passed a law mandating a requirement for at least one female member on the board of publicly-listed companies.
The report further says women in South Asia continue to trail their peers in many other parts of the world, as discriminatory laws thwart their economic advancement.
Afghanistan, which is one of the most restrictive economies in the world, imposes more than 20 legal barriers to women's economic inclusion, it said.
Pakistan also has a high number of restrictions where to register a business, married women need to include their husband's name, nationality, and address ? and they need to do this in the presence of a witness, it added.
In Nepal, women cannot confer citizenship to their children or to their non-national spouse in the same way as men.
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