Israel’s Justice Minister Tzipi Livni ordered her ministry to draft legislation that would make the segregation of women in public illegal.
Livni made the announcement May 9 on her Facebook page and in an interview with Army Radio.
“Discrimination against women in public places, in public services, cannot be allowed,” she said in the radio interview.
The legislation is expected to be ready in several weeks, Livni said in a Facebook post.
A day earlier, Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein advised government ministers against the exclusion of women in the public sphere.
The advisory is not binding, but is part of a process of restoring gender equality after years of tension in Israel over the public role and treatment of women.
Issues that have been raised in recent years include women being forced to sit at the back of buses frequented by the haredi Orthodox and to dress modestly in and around haredi neighborhoods. — jta