Responses to International Women’s Day

Responses to International Women’s Day
Globally on 8 March thousands of events take place to inspire women and celebrate achievements connecting women from all around the world. Their activities range from political rallies, business conference, government activities and networking events to fashion parades and more. Why this day? The majority of the world’s 1.3 billion absolute poor are women. For every 100 men, there are 98.6 women. There are nearly 1 billion adults in the world. Two out of every three of them is a woman. Out of every four households in the world, one is headed by a woman. There are 130 million children worldwide who are not in school. Two out of every three of these are girls. Over the last 50 years the most progress has been achieved in securing political rights for women, the right to vote and to be elected. Today, there are only a few countries where women cannot vote or run for public office. However, even though women can run for office in most countries, their presence in government is still very low. Only 24 women have been elected heads of states or government in this century, in 1995 there were 10 women heads of state. Although women’s representation at the highest level of government is generally weakest in Asia, four of these 10 held office in this region. Only 14.1 percent representative elected to Parliaments around the world is women, up from 11.7 in 1997. The percentage of female cabinet ministers worldwide has risen from 3 in 1987 to 6.2 percent in 1996. In early 1995 Sweden formed the world’s first cabinet to have equal numbers of men and women. Of the 189 highest ranking diplomats to the United Nations only eleven are women. The statistics itself says why we should observe Women’s Day internationally.
International women’s Day has been observed since in the early 1900’s, a time of great expansion and turbulence in the industrialized world that saw booming population growth and the rise of radical ideologies. Great unrest and critical debate was occurring among women. Women’s oppression and inequality was spurring women to become more vocal and active in campaigning for change. Then in 1908, 15000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights. In accordance with a declaration by the Socialist Party of America, the first National Women’s Day was observed across the United States on 28 February, 1909. Women continued to celebrate National Women’s Day on the last Sunday of February until 1913.In 1910 a second international Conference of Working Women was held in Copenhagen. A woman named a Clara Zetkin who was the Leader of the Women’s Office for the Social Democratic Party in Germany tabled the idea of an international Women’s Day. She proposed that every year in every country there should be a celebration on the same day – A Women’s Day to press for their demands. Following the decision agreed at Copenhagen in 1911, International Women’s Day was honored the first time in Australia, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland on 19 March. More than one million women and men attended International Women’s Day rallies campaign for women’s rights to work, to vote, be trained, to hold public office and end discrimination. However, less than a week later on 25 March the tragic Triangle Fire in New York City took the lives of more than 140 working women. On the eve of World War 1 campaigning for peace, Russian women observed their first International women’s Day on the last Sunday in February 1913.On the last Sunday of February 1917 Russian women began a strike for ‘bread and peace’ in response to the death over two million Russian soldiers’ in war. Opposed by political leaders the women continued to strike until four days later the Czar was forced to abdicate and the provisional Government granted women the right to vote.
Showing due respect the Day is now an official holiday in China, Armenia, Russia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. The tradition encourages men honoring their mothers, wives, girlfriends, colleagues with flowers and small gifts. The new millennium has witnessed a significant change and attitudinal shift in both women’s’ and society’s thoughts about women’s equality and emancipation. However, great improvements have been made. We do have female astronauts and prime ministers, school girls are entering into colleges and universities. It is obvious that the tone and nature of International Women’s Day has for the past few years, moved from being a reminder about the negatives to a celebration of the positives. The United Nations General Assembly, composed of delegates from every member state, celebrates International Women’s Day to recognize that peace and social progress require the active participation and equality of women and to acknowledge the contribution of women to international peace and security.
On a worldwide level, women’s access to education and proper health care has increased their participation in the paid laborur force has grown and legislation that promises equal opportunities for women ad respect for their human rights has been adopted in many countries. The word now has an ever-growing number of women participating in society as policy makers. In Bangladesh over the last several years various programs have been undertaken both on government and non-government initiatives. The Female Secondary School Stipend Programme ( FSSAP) of the government has superseded its targets. Beginning as an experiment in 1982 by a local NGO in a single upazila with USAID financial assistance under the supervision of the Asia Foundation, it covered all secondary schools in 460 upazilas with the support of mutli-donors. It was a ground- breaking program which provided incentives to keep girls in schools and resulted in large increase in enrolments, delays in the age of marriage, higher number of single child families, improved birth spacing, more females employed with higher incomes, decrease in the amount of dowries and more confident and aware females who are involved in their children’s education. Girls’ enrolment increased from an average 0f 7.9 percent to 14 percent in some areas and drop out rates has fallen from 14.7 to 3.5.
In 1993 the Adolescent Development Program of brac launched ‘Reading Centres’ which was later renamed as ‘Kishori Kendra’. The initial innovative purpose was to retain the literacy of brac primary school graduates, who were not continuing the education. Now it is working with an explicitly stated goal to improve the quality of life of vulnerable adolescent especially girls of the villages. Now there exists about 8500 Adolescent Centers throughout the country with 215050 members. The ADP club is its one room rendezvous of a village which not only contain reading materials but they have become a safe place where the girls can socialize, play indoor games , sing , dance and exchange views and experience, know about the health hazards during the changing of their age and monthly periods. Some livelihood trainings are also provided to make them economically solvent.
Women’s equality benefits mostly women, but every one-percentile growth in female secondary schooling results in a 0.3 percent growth in the economy. Yet girls are often kept from receiving education in the poorest countries that would best benefit from the economic growth. Until the men and women work together to secure the rights full potential of women, lasting solutions to the world’s most serious social, economic and political problems will be difficult to address.

Md. Masum Billah
Programme Manager: BRAC Education Program, PACE
( The writer regularly writes on various national and international issues)
10th floor, brac Centre, 75, Mohakhali , Dhaka.
Cell: 01714-091431
Email: mmbillah2000@yahoo.com.
Date: March 04, 2010.