Estonian activists highlight growing gender pay split

TALLINN - Estonian equal rights activists have launched a campaign to highlight the country's growing gender pay gap ahead of the EU's official "Equal Wages Day".

The campaign will feature restaurants around the city adding menu items with a daring play on words -- the restaurants will offer "lohe" (meaning both "salmon" and "gap") dishes at two different prices, one with "till" (meaning both "dill" and "penis") priced at 30 percent more than one without.

“Unfortunately the gap has increased in a year and Estonia is among leaders in Europe with this. Last year, the gap was 30.3, this year 30.9% and unfortunately the growth trend seems to continue,” Pille Ruul, president of the Estonian Association of Business and Professional Women, said in an interview with ETV Wednesday.

In October last year it was announced that Estonia fell 10 places in the “The Global Gender Gap Report", an annual publication released by the World Economic Forum.

Estonia fell from 37th to 47th, leaving the nation behind all of its immediate neighbors, including Russia. Latvia was ranked in 18th place in the report, while Lithuania was placed at 35th place. The report covered a total of 134 countries worldwide.