now on bbc news, iceland: a women's paradise? iceland, a country of wild beauty and dramatic contrasts. less known is its increasingly equal society. i think it's in her blood. yeah. she laughs it's the only country in the world to have closed more than 90% of its gender gap — from education, to child care, to equal pay. women and girls enjoy a progressive lifestyle... iceland's most important role is to be a lighthouse for the rest of the world. which we are not. we want to hear from women about the challenges

they still face... these women are coming from domestic abuse, where the main focus is isolation. ..and how they continue to fight to improve their country even further. we are here to empower our participants to be a bigger part of the world. we believe that we are changing the world. i music: leith tornn carnal by proc fiskal iceland has topped gender equality rankings for the last 15 years. perhaps one of the secrets to their success — start early. this is laufasborg, a nursery school in the capital, reykjavik. they do things a bit differently. the boys and the girls are separated for most of the day and are encouraged to do things

usually associated with the opposite sex. it's called "compensation work". and the girls are taught to be unapologetic and fierce. their personalities meanwhile, the boys are doing meanwhile, the boys are doing something very different. something very different. they're getting in touch they're getting in touch with their caring side, with their caring side, giving each other compliments giving each other compliments and massages. and massages. it's a teaching method it's a teaching method

called "hjalli". called "hjalli". the idea is that they develop the idea is that they develop their personalities without the pressures and constraint of conventional gender stereotypes. iceland is a good place... bara was one of the first people to attend this school as a child. her mother helped set it up. her two daughters are the third generation with a connection to the hjalli method.

about 8% of children in iceland attend these schools, and demand is growing — they've opened 17 across the country. we need to start at the very beginning. at two years old, they have formed their idea of what it means to be a boy or a girl, and that will limit them for the next years, especially when they are having this concrete way of thinking. it is either—or — boy or a girl — you know? so we need to start early. why do you separate the boys and the girls? girls are deprived of so many possibilities. we are compensating by giving them this opportunity to show their strength. and in the single—sex settings, they are not competing with the boys at the same time. if everything is mixed, the girls will step back. it is the same with boys —

we also need to give them compensation for what they have been deprived of based on gender, giving them the possibility of being more social, not only individually — strong as they are — but helping them to train the kindness and closeness. i love what i'm doing. we all do. we believe that we are changing the world. yes! so, from a very early age, children in iceland are taught to think differently about gender roles not only at school, but in every aspect of life. this is a music space specifically for women, non—binary and trans people. "laeti" — "loudness" — was a word that we found together as a group.

it's really appropriate because... i don't know, for me, as a drum teacher, it's what i say all the time, like, "more loudness, more loudness." she laughs the girls do not take space, they just don't. and the boys take all the space. some of the boys. there are always exceptions, of course, but we are here to close the cultural gap, because, for some reasons, we don't see a lot of girls or non—binary or trans kids doing this. rock music plays do you feel empowered to be in a rock band? together: yes. together: yes. ifeel more confident ifeel more confident than i did. than i did. you just can be yourself here. you just can be yourself here. you don't have to be you don't have to be like, uh, someone... like, uh, someone... yeah, someone else. yeah, someone else. because, like, because, like, rock isn't always for boys. rock isn't always for boys. and it has to be... and it has to be... girls also have girls also have to take up space. she sings in icelandic to take up space. she sings in icelandic

oh, my god! that was amazing! applause the whole thing is based on the safer space idea. so, if they can come in and they see that it is ok to take space, then they can go into the world and take space there.

it's based on a bestselling novel... mm—hm. ..and it's about a... we're going for a take! they chuckle i'll tell you later. yes, 0k. they laugh nearly 90% of working—age women have jobs. the film industry is traditionally very male dominated, but in iceland, the number of female directors has gone up significantly, and it's the highest in europe. did you ever feel that something was not achievable to you because you're not a man? i've never thought about myself in those terms. i love, you know, directing. i wanted to be a film—maker, and i think, just the way i was raised, i've never even questioned that. we arejust filming some, uh, degu rats. she laughs some animals. and they are usually the toughest actors, so... really?

she laughs do you think that there's, like, a tradition that icelandic women are particularly strong? it's a...it�*s a rough place to live, and i think with that comes a survival instinct, and there comes an inner strength and mentality that i think is really helpful in the film industry, because, obviously, what we do is quite challenging and so, yeah. i think... i think it's in our blood. yeah. 0k. that's pretty good. let's cut. but staying in the workforce can be hard for many women once they start a family. this is known as the "motherhood penalty", but not in iceland. how hectic is breakfast normally in this family? uh, we usually never have breakfast because there's no time. no. — they chuckle this isjust for you. they laugh

she says goodbye in icelandic parental leave here is 12 months, and the mother and the father can split it equally. katrin and fannar have five kids. today, whilst fannar takes them to school, katrin is off to work. herjob is in the salmon farming industry. my role here is... i'm an aqua technician. i work on the cages — just make sure that all the equipment is working. make sure the oxygen is good, the temperature is good... ..the salmon looks good. what's your favourite thing about yourjob? probablyjust being in the nature. being kind of, like, one with the ocean. the temperature of the water was 6.1 degrees and the oxygen was 92.

and is that good, or...? yeah, that's good. have you ever felt, "oh, if i get pregnant, things will be hard for me at work"? no, never. i've neverfelt, like, the pressure of not having kids because of my career. now that you're on paternity, what is a typical day with your daughter or with your kids when katrin is not around?

it's not a maternal thing, to take care of the kids. you know, dads can take care of the kids just as well as women can. this policy has had a profound impact here. 90% of all fathers take paternity leave. research shows that after going back to work, they continue to be significantly more involved. sharing child care from the very beginning, it seems, makes a long—term difference. probably, men respect women a lot more now that they have the chance to spend more time with the kids and get to know what women have done, like, for years and take part in that journey, ithink, has, like, helped equality here. they talk playfully in icelandic music: "tremors" by dark shells but what about the lowest—paid jobs? most of them are done by women.

solveig anna is head of the second—largest union in iceland, and she's working to change that. so, this is, like, our community home... 0k. ..where we do our meetings and we do our organising... mm—hm. ..and we prepare for, you know, action... the next fight. ..and the next fight, negotiations... about 90% of the country's workers belong to a union, the highest percentage in the world. how successful have you been in your demands? so, we have been quite successful. for example, we have focused on the pre—school workers, mostly women — 80% plus women — and we fought for, like, a special raise for them, and we got that, and... and how did you get it? how did we get it? by going on strike. we then went on with the same demands for other workers in similar workplaces. we won that too. strike again? strike again. yes, twice during covid. very hard.

crosstalk there is a pattern! last big important one that we achieved was this past winter when we focused on the cleaning sector, where we have almost 80% women — a huge group of immigrant women — who had described their horrible working situations and very low wages. so we took the same thought, and we said, "we're going to get special raises for this group," and we did. how? by threatening strike. by now, we've gone on so many strikes that they know we mean it. so, um, at this point, we kind of only have to threaten. iceland has a tradition of women coming together to demand change. in 1975, 25,000 women went on strike. they refused to work, cook and look after the children for one day. it was a pivotal moment that propelled iceland to the forefront of the fight for equality.

i would say that the primary reason for our success in negotiations in the past years is because of applying women. when working women come together, they can achieve real change in society. it sounds obvious — to benefit women elect women in positions of power — but, around the world, very few countries have a woman head of state. iceland was the first country to elect a woman president in 1980. i'm on my way to meet iceland's current president. and you've guessed it, it's a woman. hi. hi, madame president. nice to meet you. welcome. nice to meet you, sofia. thank you. how are you? good. welcome to bessastadir. is iceland a great place to be a woman? it is, but that doesn't mean we don't have work to do. we have opportunities in iceland to notjust lead as women,

but to be authentically who we are. there's a step beyond just representation that i think we sometimes forget to talk about, where women are allowed to bring their true leadership and approach to the table and notjust be like men, which was very much the reality early in my career. so, i think we have actually reached levels in iceland where we have and are shifting culture. that shift is everywhere to see. iceland recently became the first country in the world to issue a gender bond of 50 million euros to provide affordable housing for women on low incomes and to improve parental leave even further. there is an equality representative in all schools and universities, and all names are gender neutral. so, is this really a feminist paradise? even if iceland has made all this progress in a short period of time,

something that is much harder to eradicate in any society, really, is gender violence. i want to find out just how much of a problem there is here. a quarter of icelandic women have experienced rape or attempted rape, and around 40% have been subjected to physical or sexual violence. i've come to a small port town just outside reykjavik to meet hulda. doorbell rings hi. hi, hulda. as a child, she was abused by her grandfather, but for years she was too scared to speak out. in 2017, she founded 0fgar, a feminist organisation. when you talk about or hear about iceland, everybody says, like, "this is the safest country in the world, "we are the happiest, women are the safest." we have been marketed

as this feminist paradise, and which we are not. of course, we have less gun violence. we have less gang violence. but at home, we are not any more safe than women anywhere else and in europe. why's...why do you think it's such a big issue here? violence thrives in silence, and we have been taught since we were young to forgive and to forget and stay quiet. i grew up in all the privileges you can imagine, but at night or during the weekends, i was still being molested by my grandfather, and i didn't dare say anything because i did not want to shame my family. 0ur organisation is for survivors, done by survivors of gender—based violence, and we use all our resources — our social media, our energy — to give survivors of gender—based violence a safe place to give their voice. we didn't start, like, really speaking up about what happened to us until metoo in 2017. so now, women are starting to say, like, "this happened to me, this is what did it to me."

some women in iceland believe the justice system has let them down in a systemic way. more than 80% of reports of sexual violence are dropped — they never make it to court — and because of that, the state is being sued for misogyny. we thought it was time to take things further. we thought it was completely unacceptable that women were not taken seriously, and we decided to use the european court of human rights to sue the icelandic state, to show that we would not tolerate this, and to try to getjustice done. we have already succeeded in the way that icelandic authorities have had to answer very critical and difficult questions about police work when it comes to sexual violence. now we are just crossing our fingers that we will win. do you think that the government is doing enough to tackle the issue of gender violence? no, i don't think any government is doing enough. and i think we also

have challenges in the justice system and in the culture at large. as long as there's gender—based violence, we're not doing enough. it's as simple as that. iceland is a small country. it only has two shelters for women fleeing gender—based violence. hi! hiya. how are you? i'm fine. welcome. going to a shelter can be a very isolating experience. the focus here is making women feel less alone from the very beginning. so, this is the common area. 0k. the living room and the kitchen. so this is, maybe, like, the heart of the... ah! ..heart of the house. we eat dinner together every night... mm—hm.

..and this is very important for us — to have this common area where we come together... mm. ..and also, during the nights, we are here — there are knitting nights, or whatever�*s going on, so... and it's an open—plan kitchen, as well. yeah. the idea is, like, we have our housewife that is here every day, but the idea is that the women, they also help, and they are, like, part of the household. and it's...| guess it's, sort of, you don't really feel isolated if there's a common space. yeah, that's the main idea. like, these women are coming from domestic abuse, where the main focus is isolation most of the time. so, it is important for us that the women and the children feel this sense of community in here. mm—hm. the fact is that the violence is just the same here as everywhere else. and it's a pandemic, and it's just in the background all the time, so people have

gotten a bit used to it. and what makes it difficult is this paradox that everything is so perfect in iceland, because we are. . .there are things that we are not doing well enough, and some things we are doing, like, worse than in other countries. how do you know that your way of doing things works? 20 years ago, 64% of women went back to the perpetrators, and last year it was 11%. we believe that all this work that we are doing is really helping the women to work their way away from the violence and away from the relationship.

we're at a vigil to remember all the icelandic women who have been killed by men. itjust shows that, even in a country that is supposed to be a great place for women, things are far from perfect. they sing in icelandic iceland has closed more than

90% of its gender gap. it's the only country in the world to have done so. at this rate, when do you think that iceland will close the gender gap? my ambition is for iceland to be first to close the gender gap and hopefully by 2030. and iceland should — and already does — lead on that front. that's an ambitious goal, i realise that. but when you say "closing the gender gap by 2030," i mean, that's very soon. it is. do you think that's realistic? probably not a realistic goal, but we don't need realistic goals now. we need courageous goals, ambitious goals. we are facing massive challenges the world over, and empowering women, closing the gender gap is a big part of solving them, if not the key to solving them. do you feel optimistic about the changes that the new generation, you know, your daughter's generation,

will bring? absolutely. my daughters are so well educated about consent. they will hopefully take that into their relationship if they have one in the future. you don't need to have, like, a husband and two children, and a house, or like... you can be... 0ra wife. i will. .. you know... or a wife. linda is working on a purpose—built shelter, the first in iceland and one of very few in europe. and what will the common area look like? what do you envisage? warmth and cosiness, and that's, like, the main thing. i feel like it's really important that you get the time to still be yourself. i actually think maybe - iceland's most important role is not only to close its own

gender gap, but to be - a lighthouse for the rest of the world. .

hello, welcome to bbc news. in a couple of minutes king charles will give his christmas message which we will bring to you. this year's christmas message has been recorded outside of a royal residence for the first time in almost two decades. the speech was filmed earlier this month in a former hospital chapel, the fitzrovia chapel in london, which was used by staff and patients of the middlesex hospital before it closed in 2005. the christmas message comes at the end of a year in which the king faced a cancer diagnosis. it is expected the king will refer to his cancer treatment in the message. the king, queen camilla and the princess of wales have all battled health issues this year. his health struggles didn't stop the king from conducting royal duties, making the long journey

to australia with queen camilla in october. he also travelled to the polynesian island nation of samoa to head his first commonwealth heads of government meeting. earlier the royal family attended sandringham for their traditional christmas day service. prince andrew did not attend, after it was confirmed earlier this week that he would not be joining the family at sandringham. we saw the royal family a little bit earlier on today. the service took place before the king's christmas message and the king, queen camilla, prince william and princess catherine and the princess of wales were joined by the prince and their three children. that is ahead of the king's speech, which we will play for you here. let's hearfrom the king.

drums roll. god save the king plays.