The theme for International Women’s Day, Thursday, March 8, is “Time is now: Rural and urban activists transforming women’s lives.”
Events around the world for gender equality include marches, social media campaigns, cultural efforts, and grassroots organizing.
“We know that healthy societies include a wide mix of voices, yet millions of women around the world are being silenced and their potential cramped,” said U.N. Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. “The current solidarity movements have to be a tipping point for accountability; an end to impunity and the cyclical poverty of women in both rural and urban areas. Lively political activism from both men and women must target change for those who need it most.”
Mlambo-Ngcuka said gender inequality is widespread: one in three women experience violence in their lifetime; 830 women die every day from preventable pregnancy-related causes; and only one in four members of parliament worldwide are women.
It will be 2086 before the gender pay gap is closed if present trends continue with no action, she said.
The U.N. Women’s latest report, “Turning Promises into Action,” shows:
- Across all regions, women are more likely to live in extreme poverty than men. This gender gap in poverty, living on less than $1.90 a day, is as high as 22 per cent for the 25 to 34 age group, women’s peak reproductive years, proving the challenges of reconciling work outside and inside the house.
- More than 50 per cent of urban women and girls in developing countries live in conditions where they lack at least one of the following: access to clean water, improved sanitation facilities, durable housing, and sufficient living area.
For a listing of activities for International Women’s Day, see 2018 International Women’s Day Events.
