A Serbian bus company met with outrage over "gender
apartheid" after it introduced different coloured tickets for men
and women to prevent abuse, radio B92 reported Wednesday.
Autoprevoz transport in central Cacak, owned by Israeli company
Kavim Public Transportation Ltd since 2007, has introduced the
same-priced daily bus tickets in different colors: red and purple
for women and blue and yellow for men, the radio reported.
The move was an attempt to prevent widespread "abuse of all-day
tickets" among the passengers, it added.
"Everyone will now have a ticket in accordance with the gender
and it will not be possible for a wife to use the ticket in the
morning and give it to her husband in the afternoon," Aleksandar
Petronijevic of the company said.
But women rights activists were up in arms about the move.
"The move is a perverted interpretation of gender equality, it
introduces a gender apartheid by issuing different tickets for men
and women," said Stasa Zajevic of the non-governmental group "Women
in Black."
Another critic, Goran Papovic of the National Consumers
Association said the move would not really change anything.
"No one can prevent a woman, who cannot give the ticket to her
husband, from lending it to a girlfriend," he said.