Por decisión unánime de 7 votos contra cero, la Corte Constitucional zanjó el debate al rededor del cobro de un impuesto del 5 por ciento a productos de higiene femenina como los tampones y las toallas higiénicas.



La Corte avaló la ponencia de la magistrada Gloria Ortiz, quien estuvo a favor del demandante en que este impuesto era regresivo y que iba en contra de la igualdad y la equidad, pues se estaba gravando un producto de necesidad básica de las mujeres, lo que les impone una carga tributaria solo por el hecho de nacer mujeres. Ese impuesto quedó establecido en la reforma tributaria del 2016, que bajó el gravamen que tenían las toallas, tampones y protectores del 16 al 5 por ciento. Este miércoles declaró inasequible el artículo que le pone impuestos a esos productos.

"Esa norma viola el derecho a la igualdad ya que quedaron gravados algunos bienes de primera necesidad para las mujeres colombianas. Las ciudadanas de este país serán gravadas con IVA, solamente por el hecho de haber nacido bajo el sexo femenino", había expresado en su momento Danilo Andrés Virviescas, analista de comercio exterior, quien demandó la ley 1819 del 2016 de reforma tributaria.



Aunque el impuesto que en su momento se impuso a esos productos generó debate, en el proyecto de Ley de Financiamiento, que en estos momentos se tramita en el Congreso, las compresas higiénicas y tampones quedarían exentas de IVA.



Los principales argumentos por los que la Corte falló a favor de quitar este impuesto fueron que las toallas y tampones se relacionan con la dignidad de las mujeres y otras alternativas de higiene femenina son mucho más costosas. Además de que es un producto que solo es consumido por mujeres, lo que genera una discriminación indirecta.

Las toallas y tampones son productos insustituibles para mujeres de escasos recursos económicos en la actualidad, se relacionan con la dignidad de las mujeres y otras alternativas son más costosas FACEBOOK

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Según la magistrada Ortiz, "este es un producto insustituible para mujeres de bajos recursos en los momentos actuales, esto no significa que el legislador en el futuro no pueda hacer una análisis sobre las situaciones o avances en la tecnología en materia de salud o higiene para las mujeres”.



Añadió que la medida era necesaria pues en muchos lugares del mundo las mujeres incluso “no pueden ir al colegio o al trabajo en los momentos en los que se encuentran menstruando”.



Al debate habían llegado conceptos como el de la Procuraduría, que se había mostrado a favor del impuesto del 5 por ciento para toallas, tampones y protectores.

Para el Ministerio Público la diferencia entre hombres y mujeres en este asunto es relevante porque "los sujetos no pertenecen al mismo género, y en consecuencia no son comparables en lo atinente a la norma acusada, por lo cual en este aspecto la diferencia de trato es constitucionalmente válida".



En su concepto enviado a la Corte, la Procuraduría afirmó que distinto sería si existiera un bien de primera necesidad utilizado solo por miembros del género masculino, que hubiera sido objeto de un tratamiento tributario marcadamente diferente al ítem de toallas y tampones. Con lo que, según ese organismo, el impuesto sería desigual si a un producto de necesidad básica masculino no se le hubieran cobrado impuestos.



Mientras que en la otra orilla del debate estaba la Defensoría del Pueblo, también un organismo de control y que pedía tumbar ese tributo considerándolo discriminatorio.



En su concepto enviado a la Corte, ese organismo aseguraba que el impuesto a toallas y tampones es discriminatorio ya que "gravar estos bienes implica incrementar su costo y, por tanto, reducir la posibilidad de acceso de los mismos, en particular para las mujeres y niñas con menos capacidad adquisitiva".



La Defensoría también argumentó que este impuesto impacta en el derecho a la salud de las mujeres, educación y participación social, e incrementa la brecha de género dándole más garantías a la población masculina, lo que desconoce los compromisos del Estado para eliminar estas diferencias. Por eso le había pedido a la Corte que le ordenara al Congreso eximir a las mujeres de este gravamen.

JUSTICIA</s>Gender equality investors got an early holiday present this week: a new free fund screening tool enabling them to evaluate the gender equality of their mutual funds and ETFs. The tool, created by As You…

Gender equality investors got an early holiday present this week: a new free fund screening tool enabling them to evaluate the gender equality of their mutual funds and ETFs.

The tool, created by As You Sow, a nonprofit promoting environmental and social corporate responsibility through shareholder advocacy, coalition building and innovative legal strategies, in collaboration with Equipleap, a gender equality data and insight provider in Amsterdam and London, enables investors to view and compare the gender equality score of the 5,000 most commonly-held U.S. mutual funds and ETFs in U.S. 401(k) plans. It’s the fifth socially responsible screening tool As You Sow has created, joining screens for fossil-free funds, weapons-free funds, deforestation-free funds and tobacco-free funds.

[See: 7 Things You Need to Understand About Your 401(k).]

The tools are designed to meet the needs of a growing cohort of socially responsible investors.

“We believe there is a wave building that will become a tsunami, particularly with women who want to invest their money to create a world they want to live in,” says Andrew Behar, chief executive officer of As You Sow in Oakland, California.

Socially responsible investing grew by more than 38 percent between 2016 and 2018, according to The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investing (US-SIF). Today, more than one-quarter of professionally managed dollars are invested in accordance with SRI practices. A decade ago, that number was $1 in every $12.

But investors can’t make socially responsible investment decisions if they don’t know what they own.

“We realized investors were signing pledges to invest their values but no one knew what their portfolios or 401(k)s actually held,” Behar says.

With mutual funds and ETFs containing hundreds to thousands of stocks, trying to uncover the true social responsibility of each fund is likely beyond even the most devoted SRI investor’s scope.

So, As You Sow began doing the legwork for investors. They started with fossil-free funds and continued working through the social and environmental issues most important to investors.

“Gender equality was one we wanted to do from the beginning but until now the data wasn’t there,” Behar says.

[See: 8 Ways to Build a Low-Cost Portfolio for Social Change.]

The only data robust enough to create a ranking tool was the number of women on company boards, which they didn’t feel was reflective of the whole gender equality issue — until Equileap entered the picture.

The registered charity gathered data on 12 key performance indicators that shape a company’s gender diversity policy, from the number of women in executive positions to maternity and paternity leave, sexual harassment policies and human rights policies. As You Sow then aggregated those 12 metrics into an overall fund gender equality score.

The result is investors “can now compare fund to fund how they rate on gender issues” with a simple search, Behar says.

You can search by fund name, ticker symbol or asset manager name. Or, if you don’t know what you’re looking for, you can filter by fund categories, families and types, and if it’s diversified or labeled as socially responsible. You can also compare major fund managers to see how their mutual funds stack up on gender equality.

Results show the overall gender lens score, the fund’s overall rank across all funds and its peer rank. You can also see if the fund has a socially responsible mandate or a member of US-SIF. Clicking on a fund reveals the fund’s gender balance, defined by having a men-to-women ratio between 40 and 50 percent, and the 10 top and bottom gender-scoring holdings. Fund holdings are updated monthly. Equileap company scores are updated annually.

While funds are scored for overall gender equality out of 100 points, currently the best mutual fund in the entire system is only a 67, Behar says, which shows how far companies have to go on gender equality issues. But he believes tools like the gender equality funds screener will bring about that change.

[See: 8 Global ESG Funds to Diversify Your Sustainable Portfolio.]

“Our theory of change is that corporations are the most powerful entities in the world. When you shift a corporation, you shift not only the people within the corporation but the communities and consumers they serve, as well as their shareholders and entire supply chain,” Behar says. “When people invest their values, it actually shifts the world because it shifts capital, and where capital goes, those are the companies that will prosper.”

The gender equality funds tool is available to investors at gendereqaulityfunds.org. As You Sow’s other screening tools can be found at asyousow.org/invest-your-values.

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How to Find Gender Equality Mutual Funds and ETFs originally appeared on usnews.com</s>Even though she has been at her nation’s helm for 13 years, Chancellor Angela Merkel said much more needs to be done to achieve gender equality in Germany.

As Germany marked the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage, Merkel said in a speech in Berlin on Monday that there’s a lot still to do to achieve gender equality notably in the worlds of politics, business, science and culture.

“The goal needs to be equality, equality everywhere,” she said.

“I hope it becomes natural for women and men to split up work, raising the children and doing the household equally … and I hope that’s not going to take another hundred years to get there.”

Merkel, the country’s first female chancellor, highlighted the fact that only 30.9 percent of lawmakers in the current Bundestag are female, down from 36.5 percent in the previous one.

“We’ve achieved a lot, but there’s still much to do and we cannot accept setbacks,” Merkel said at an anniversary ceremony in front of mostly female ministers, lawmakers, mayors and others.She listed some of the progress that had been made in recent years such as providing better child care and maternity leave.

Merkel, who’s a physicist by training, said girls should be encouraged to choose future-oriented jobs in technology.

As for her own role, she acknowledged to roaring applause she had made a contribution: “Nobody laughs anymore if a girl says she wants to become a
The Constitutional Court of Colombia unanimously rules to strike down a five per cent tax on feminine hygiene products on gender equality grounds.