Women’s Day is celebrated around the world, but abuse and inequality still thrive

Colorful celebrations take place all over the world, but they are still far away.

Madrid, Spain. Hundreds of thousands of people will take part in colorful rallies, rallies and events around the world on Wednesday to celebrate International Women’s Day, a date set to honor women and demand equality for half the world’s population.

While significant progress has been made in dozens of countries, the situation in places like Afghanistan and Iran, and the ongoing crime and violations in almost every country in the world, are a cold reminder that there is still a long way to go.

On Monday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres noted that women’s rights are “violated, threatened and violated” around the world, and gender equality will not be achieved for 300 years on the current path. He said decades of progress is fading away because “patriarchy is fighting back.”

This day is celebrated in different ways in different countries.

More than 1 million people are expected to take to the streets in Spain in noisy evening demonstrations in Madrid, Barcelona and other Spanish cities. Large rallies are planned in many other cities around the world, while in some countries only smaller events are held.

Women gathered on Wednesday for demonstrations in Pakistan’s major cities, including the capital, Islamabad, amid tight security. The organizers said they would be peaceful and that the marches were only aimed at restoring the rights guaranteed by the constitution.

Some conservative groups last year threatened to stop such marches by force. But this year, Pakistani authorities have stepped up security measures to protect protesters. Pakistan is a conservative country where women often feel unsafe in public places due to open harassment.

In neighboring Afghanistan, the country has become the most repressive country in the world against women and girls since the Taliban seized power in 2021, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the UN mission said Afghanistan’s new rulers have shown an almost “exclusive focus on enforcing rules that effectively leave most women and girls trapped in their homes.”

They banned the education of girls after the sixth grade and banned women from public places such as parks and gyms. Women are also prohibited from working for national and international NGOs and are ordered to cover themselves from head to toe.

Roza Otunbayeva, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General and Head of Mission to Afghanistan, said “it was painful to watch their methodical, deliberate and systematic efforts to push Afghan women and girls out of the public sphere.”

Elsewhere, significant progress has been made for women on equality, reproductive rights, laws to end gender-based and sexual violence, and progress towards equal pay, gender equality, and shared household chores.

Spain on Tuesday passed a new equality law that requires women – and men – to make up at least 40% of the boards of directors of public companies and private companies with more than 250 employees and €50 million in assets. The same applies to the Spanish cabinet.

The bill also proposes to oblige political parties to have parity on their electoral lists, with the names of men and women alternating.

Left-wing governments have put women’s rights at the forefront of the past two decades, passing far-reaching laws on abortion, menstrual leave, and improved maternity and paternity leave, among other things.

But on Tuesday, the current left-wing coalition – with 14 women and nine men in office – faced its worst test in three years in office, when the two ruling parties pitted each other over a reform of their groundbreaking sexual harassment law that inadvertently led to reduced the sentences of more than 700 offenders and caused outrage in the country.

While many countries have made similar progress, especially in Europe, others like the United States, which abolished the constitutional right to abortion last year, saw the return of restrictions in many states, which many women see as a big step backwards.

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