Post date: Jan 28, 2012 1:1:28 PM
Topless Ukrainian women from the protest group, known as "Femen", demand more female representatives at the World Economic Forum (WEF) and on political bodies worldwide.
DAVOS, SWITZERLAND (JANUARY 28, 2011) (REUTERS) - Members of Ukraine's Femen protest movement took their demand for more female representatives in the world bodies to the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) in the Swiss resort of Davos on Saturday (January 28).
Swiss police quickly arrested the three women who took off their tops to protest in the snow near the heavily guarded WEF grounds.
"In this building now there are a lot of men but only a few women, the same way as in each parliament and in each congress," Protester Inna Shevchenko told reporters on her way to the venue where business and world leaders gathered for the 42nd annual WEF meeting.
"In Ukraine, we have a cabinet of ministers only for men. There are no women," Shevchenko said, adding that women wanted to "decide for themselves."
"We are coming there to scream, using women's voices, women's bodies to explain that women need to decide also," she said.
Last August, Femen took its distinctive brand of protest to the trial of Ukrainian ex-prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko where outside the court they bared their breasts.
The activists regularly stage topless public protests to dramatise their causes.
Femen regularly stages protests over women's rights and covers a range of causes from campaigning against sex tourism in Ukraine to the treatment of women in parts of the Middle East.