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 News from Around the Americas | March 2005 
World Marks International Women’s Day
 Associated Press
The first International Women’s Day was held in Europe in 1911, as part of the growing struggle for women’s right to vote and to hold office, and for an end to discrimination on the job. What has followed is nine decades of women’s struggle worldwide for equality, justice, peace and development. |
United Nations, New York - Leaders of the fight for women’s equality say there is no going back on the revolution that began 30 years ago though the challenges ahead are immense.
The comments came at a U.N. meeting to evaluate the world’s progress toward gender equality. Now in its second and final week, the gathering has drawn delegates from 130 countries and 6,000 representatives from women’s and human rights organizations.
On Tuesday, they will observe International Women’s Day with a panel discussion on gender equality beyond 2005.
But there was an early commemoration on Friday, before most of the ministers and VIPs left, that included two Nobel Peace Prize winners and the heads of the four U.N. conferences since 1975 that built the global women’s movement.
Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai, who was last year’s Nobel laureate, said women must celebrate their achievements but there is still much to do. She urged women to fight poverty by championing debt relief and open markets, and to tackle climate change and deforestation.
"It is us who will eventually have to convince our governments that women need to be given equal space, to be given an opportunity to exploit their potential, and that it is not a gift for women to participate in decision-making — it is a right," Maathai said to loud applause.
Rigoberta Menchu, the Indian rights activist from Guatemala who won the Peace Prize in 1992, said women should be "a beacon of hope" to those fighting racism, discrimination, exclusion, and the lack of economic opportunity.
"We women have to give the example of being inclusive, of fighting exclusion, of fighting racism," she said. "That is why I’m here."
Helvi Sipila, secretary-general of the first U.N. women’s conference in Mexico City in 1975, said in a video message from her home in Finland that women have made "considerable strides towards gender equality," and "every day is an opportunity for actions, not just words."
"We must ask ourselves more seriously and with greater determination than ever what we can do in order to end violence, to enhance national and international understanding, and to secure world peace," said Sipila, 89.
Gertrude Mongella, secretary-general of the Beijing conference and now president of the Pan-African Parliament, recalled that in her final speech in at the 1995 Beijing conference she said: "A revolution has begun and there’s no going back."
Ten years later, she said, women are more visible, gender equality "has become a working concept worldwide," and "women and men are now mobilized to see women’s issues as societal issues, whether they like it or not."
Former U.N. assistant secretary-general Angela King, who was Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s top adviser on women and organized the 2000 U.N. women’s conference, said the challenges of five years ago are the challenges of today.
A growing number of women live in poverty, women are lagging behind in economic advancement, globalization is hurting many women, the incidence of HIV/AIDS is rising among young women and violence against women is increasing in armed conflict, at home and through trafficking, she said.
King said progress is slow for a host of reasons — no budgets for gender programs, only four female prime ministers of independent countries and the difficulty in changing stereotypes of women’s limited roles.
"In 1975, the Mexico conference ignited a spark of awareness among women of their shared hopes and common problems," King said.
"With each successive conference, the spark grew until it became a living flame in Beijing."
"Let us pledge today as the United Nations community, as governments, regions and individuals, that the flame for women’s freedom and equality become a shining beacon for action to fully realize gender equality, development and peace," she said. |
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