PARIS: On Friday, there were rallies, festivals, and marches in observance of International Women’s Day across the globe.
On this day, groundbreaking laws were voted on or confirmed in a few countries.
Small groups of women in Afghanistan held uncommon protests in private areas following a crackdown by Taliban authorities that drove activists off the streets.
A few women from various regions came together to call for the removal of barriers to employment, travel, and education, according to activists from the Purple Saturdays organization.
In a second referendum, Irish citizens considered modernizing the constitution by extending the meaning of family beyond marriage to include “durable relationships.”
Another modification that has been suggested would be to replace the outdated terminology regarding a mother’s “duties in the home” with a sentence that acknowledges the care given by family members.
In Italy, hundreds of people protested against violence against women in Rome and Milan in the wake of many high-profile incidents involving young women killed by their lovers.
Roughly ten thousand people flocked to the Circo Massimo, an old Roman racetrack, in the Italian capital, holding banners, dancing, and singing slogans.
Six couples in Japan sued the government on International Women’s Day to get the right to change their surnames after marriage.
Married couples are required by rules dating back to the 19th century to select the husband’s or the wife’s name; according to the plaintiffs’ attorneys, 95% of them chose the man’s name.
Protesters in London donned outfits inspired by characters from Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, which imagines a society in which women are treated like property. They carried signs advocating for Iran’s women’s rights.
A different protest in Parliament Square asked for girls’ rights to an education and emphasized the situation of women in Afghanistan.
The right to an abortion was officially enshrined in the French constitution, marking a milestone for the nation led by President Emmanuel Macron.
He declared, “We will not stop until this promise is upheld everywhere in the world.”
In an interview released on the occasion, Elisabeth Borne, the former prime minister of France, criticized the “insidious sexism” she claimed pervaded French politics.
She said to French station RTL, “Men in politics, they all have an interest in imposing masculine codes, it eliminates the competition.” Thousands of women from the Democratic Republic of the Congo marched in black to honor the lives lost in fighting in the country’s east.
In Bukavu, the capital of the east African province of South Kivu, which has been devastated by decades of armed conflict, women from all walks of life came together.
Women protested violence and called for gender equality at a rally in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo.
The patriarchal culture of Kosovo, the post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by the conflict, and the legal system that has allowed domestic abuse to take root are some of the reasons why there are still many cases of gender-based violence.
As Russian President Vladimir Putin praised women soldiers fighting on the front lines, masked Russian soldiers dressed in combat gear distributed roses to ladies in the eastern part of Ukraine.
In a video released by the Russian ministry of defense, troops with scarves covering their faces were shown delivering flowers in Mariupol, the Ukrainian port city that Russia had taken over at the beginning of the conflict.
