International Women's Day: Choose to Challenge

 

"I'm a Women phenomenally. Phenomenal Women, that’s me "

- Maya Angelo

 

1) International Women's Day

International Women's Day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also makes a call to action for accelerating gender parity. Significant activities are witnessed worldwide as groups come together to celebrate women's achievements or rally for women's equality. The campaign theme for international women's day 2021 is 'choose to challenge' because it indicates that a "challenged world is an alert world and from challenge comes change". This year we can all choose to challenge everything that has been holding us back and become better allies.

 

2) History

In 1911, International Women's Day was commemorated for the first time in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland on 19 March. Between 1913 to 1914, women's in Russia observed their first Women's Day on February 23. Later, it was decided that March 8 can be globally accepted to celebrate IWD. Also it is the day to acknowledge their courage of breaking the rigid stereotypes and coming out as strong powerful women.

 

3) Color symbolizing International Women's Day

Purple, green and white are the colors of International Women's Day. Purple signifies justice and dignity. Green symbolizes hope. White represents purity. The colors originated from the Women's Social and Political Union(WSPU) in the UK in 1908.

 

4) Gains and gaps in women's engagement in global economy

Around the world, women perform two-thirds of the work for 10 percent of the income and only 1 percent of the assets. Women also constitute 70 percent of the world's poor. Women's earning still lags behind that of men's; they earn on average 30 percent of men's wages in the middle East-North Africa(MENA) region and between 60 and 70 percent in East Asia. However, the women's control of the world's investible wealth is on the rise, possibly reaching $72 trillion worldwide by 2020, according to Borton consulting group. There are still some hopeful signs, as the World Economic Forum revealed that two-thirds of 115 countries posted gains in overall gender gap scores.

 

5) Current status of women violence around world

·         Calls to helplines have increased five-fold in some countries during COVID-19 Pandemic.

·         Globally 35% of women have experience physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence.

·         On average, 157 women are killed by member of their family every day.

·         Adult woman account for nearly half (49%) of all human trafficking detected globally; mostly trafficked for sexual exploitation.

·         At least 200 million women and girls, aged 15-49 years, have undergone female genital mutilation in 31 countries.

·         One of the ten women in the European Union reported experiencing cyber harassment since the age of 15.

 

6) Different countries and organizations effort to control this issue

·         At least 155 countries have passed laws on DV and 140 have laws on Sexual harassment in the workplace (source: World Bank 2020)

·         By September 2020, 48 countries had integrated prevention and response to violence against women and girls into COVID 19 response plan.

·         For more than 10 years, UN women's global initiative, safe cities and public spaces has worked to prevent and respond to sexual harassment against women and girls in public places.

·         The World Bank supports over $300 million in development projects aimed at addressing Gender Based Violence(GBV) in World Bank Group-financed operations, both through standalone projects and through the integration of GBV components in sector specific projects in areas such as transport, education, social protection and forced displacement.