THE Philippines has banned companies from forcing female employees to wear high heels at work, in a move lauded by a labour union on Monday which said it was one of the first countries in the world to do so to protect women’s rights.

Citing health and safety issues, the Philippines’ labour department said companies can no longer compel women to wear high heels, after four women lodged a complaint to a labour union which took the matter to the authorities.

“This is good,” Alan Tanjusay from the Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines, which spearheaded the policy change, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from Manila. “This frees women from a sexist policy and the bondage of unsafe and dangerous working conditions.”

The union spokesman said he believed the Philippines is the first country to impose a nationwide ban after the Canadian province of British Columbia issued a similar order in April this year.

Published in Dawn, September 26th, 2017