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Andorra Telecom and Inlingua have received the Olympe de Gouges award, conferred by the Department of Equality Policies of the Ministry of Social Affairs, Interior and Justice, for promoting gender equality in the workplace. This year was the first edition of this award, and it was celebrated on the occasion of International Women's Day. Its organisers recognised the measures and initiatives implemented by both companies in relation to equal rights for men and women.

The Minister of Social Affairs, Interior and Justice, Xavier Espot, presented the award to the two winning companies and acknowledged their strong commitment to gender equality. He also highlighted that the struggle to obtain equal rights for men and women is a fight for democratic values and that the Andorran Government works tirelessly to attain such equality.

In that sense, he announced that the draft bill on equality that the Government is working on will include measures that will have a direct impact on workplace equality, such as the implementation of effective controls to guarantee equal pay.

During his speech, Minister Espot mentioned the two different forms of wage gap. The first type of pay gap involves gender-based remuneration differences within the same business sector, company and professional category. The Minister of Social Affairs stated that public authorities have the responsibility to combat these differences and to provide women suffering gender-based discrimination with the means to report them.

The second form of gender-based pay gap is associated with the average wage differences between men and women, regardless of their professional sector or category. Espot also pointed out that there are multiple causes driving these differences, and stated that fighting gender-based pay gaps requires a more cross-disciplinary approach: in addition to implementing specific educational programmes in schools and incentive policies for companies, public administrations, decision-making centres need to become shining examples of real and effective equality. In that regard, Espot acknowledged the two winning companies' commitment and highlighted that efforts such as theirs in the private sector, have a considerable impact.

Andorra Telecom received the aforementioned award in the "large companies" category for its commitment to non-sexist communication and its awareness-raising of equality-related issues. It also carried out a meticulous study of its workplace environment and implemented remuneration policies free of gender-based stereotypes, as well as programmes for reconciling work, personal and family life, and approved a sexual harassment prevention protocol.

As for Inlingua, the company won the Olympe de Gouges award in the "medium-sized company" category for having implemented measures such as creating a permanent equality commission. The company also carried out regular surveys among its staff, established a sexual harassment reporting procedure, implemented awareness measures and applied a cross-cutting gender perspective to their commercial activity.

The award ceremony was hosted at Hotel Cèntric, and boasted lectures from the CFO of Shechers Iberia, Rosa Allegue, and the Director General of GVC Gaesco, Carme Hortalà. These two women, both of whom hold highly-important positions, explained their experiences and the difficulties they had encountered due to their gender.