THE plight of scores of Palestinian women and girls languishing in Israeli prisons was highlighted yesterday on International Women’s Day.

The Palestinian Prisoners Society said 65 female detainees, including 12 minors, were being held in “dire conditions” in Israel’s HaSharon and Damon prisons, where cells are unbearably cold in winter and hot in summer.

The Israeli Prison Service imposes restrictions on the provision of clothes, bedding and shoes, the society said.

It added that Palestinian political prisoners were held in the same blocks as Israeli criminals, who routinely subject them to verbal abuse.

In a statement on the eve of Women’s Day, Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi said: “Palestinian women continue to suffer severe psychological, physical and emotional abuse and endure grave acts of oppression, violence and hardship at the hands of Israel and its unbridled violations.”

However, women fared better elsewhere yesterday. Iceland’s government announced that it would introduce new legislation next month towards its target of abolishing the gender pay gap — between 14 and 18 per cent there — by 2022.

The proposed law would force employers with more than 25 staff to prove that they pay equal wages for work of equal value.

While equal pay legislation exists in many countries, Iceland is thought to be the first to make it mandatory for both private firms and public bodies.

“The time is right to do something radical about this issue,” said Equality and Social Affairs Minister Thorsteinn Viglundsson.

In Russia, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed a five-year national action plan supporting women’s health, economic opportunities and participation in politics.

However, Russia recently passed a law that decriminalises some forms of domestic violence, claiming to protect “family values.”

In the US, organisers of January’s national women’s marches against President Donald Trump called for a “Day Without Women.”

They urged women not to go to work or spend money so as to demonstrate how women’s paid and unpaid work keeps households, communities and economies running.

Similar actions were planned in France and Iceland, according to the International Trade Union Confederation.

On visit to Kenya’s capital Nairobi, United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres said priority should be given to the “full presence of women” in government institutions, political systems and business.

In Montenegro, women protested against a recent 25 per cent cut in benefits for mothers of three or more children.

And in Poland, women marched in defence of abortion rights, which are under threat from the conservative government.