Washington, Sept 10 (KNN) Women in India face widespread restrictions for jobs and there are no laws to protect them against sexual harassment in public places, according to a new World Bank report on South Asia's largest economy.

Legal barriers to the economic advancement of women are widespread, shutting them out of certain jobs, limiting their access to credit, and leaving them unprotected against violence in many economies around the world, said the World Bank Group’s Women, Business and the Law 2016 report, released Wednesday.

"It’s highly significant that while almost every country on earth testifies that women should not face discrimination, invariably in practice women do, although the extent varies greatly. By carefully gathering evidence from around the world on the real state of economic life, we can see clearly how women face numerous restrictions in the workplace and how removing these can unleash energy and growth,” said Kaushik Basu, World Bank Chief Economist and Senior Vice President. 

Women in South Asia continue to trail their peers in many other parts of the world, as discriminatory laws thwart their economic advancement, the report said.
 
The report, published every two years, examines laws that impede women’s employment and entrepreneurship in 173 economies throughout the world. The 2016 edition expands coverage in South Asia from 5 to 8 economies, adding Afghanistan, Bhutan and the Maldives.
 
Several economies from the South Asia region are among the most restrictive in the world in the dimensions measured affecting women’s entrepreneurship and employment.  The region as a whole has been lagging in enacting reforms in the areas measured by the report, with only 3 reforms made in 2 economies in the past two years.   
 
In India, the region’s largest economy with 612 million women, job restrictions remain widespread, with women not allowed to work in mining or in jobs that require lifting weights above a certain threshold or working with glass. The law also prohibits women from jobs “involving danger to life, health or morals.”
 
In addition, there are no laws to protect women against sexual harassment in public places, protections which exist in 18 other economies around the world.
 
In the last two years, India undertook one reform in the areas monitored by the report. By introducing a law mandating at least one female member on the board of publicly listed companies, India became the only developing country and one of only nine countries in the world to mandate female inclusion on corporate boards, the report said.
 
The full report and accompanying datasets are available at http://wbl.worldbank.org (KNN Bureau)