This Day in History: when Swiss women got the vote

SWI swissinfo.ch looks back at the long battle for universal suffrage in Switzerland. Women only gained the right to vote in federal elections after a referendum on February 7, 1971.

Vaud became the first canton to let women vote on cantonal decisions in 1959. Most cantons followed suit in 1972, apart from Appenzell Inner Rhodes, which was forced by the Federal Court to give women their full voting rights in 1990.