International Women’s Day marked on the streets and in the courts

Women students demonstrated in Milan, Italy to denounce violence against women – Copyright AFP SAUL LOEB

People around the world marked International Women’s Day Friday with protests, demonstrations and celebrations.

Some countries marked the day by voting on — or confirming — groundbreaking legislation.

– In Afghanistan, small groups of women staged rare demonstrations in private spaces, after a crackdown by Taliban authorities forced activists off the streets.

A handful of women in several provinces gathered to demand restrictions on jobs, travel and education be lifted, said activists from the Purple Saturdays group.

– In Pakistan, hundreds of women rallied in major cities to highlight street harassment, bonded labour and the lack of female representation in parliament.

“We face all sorts of violence: physical, sexual, cultural violence where women are exchanged to settle disputes, child marriages, rape, harassment in the workplace, on the streets,” said Farzana Bari, lead organiser of the Islamabad event.

– Irish voters are taking part in a double referendum on proposals to modernise its constitution, which could expand the definition of family from those founded on marriage to “durable relationships”.

Another proposed change would replace old-fashioned language around a mother’s “duties in the home” with a clause recognising care provided by family members.

– In Italy, thousands of people marched in Rome and Milan calling for an end to violence against women following a number of high-profile cases of young women murdered by their boyfriends.

Holding banners, dancing and chanting slogans, at least 10,000 people gathered in the Italian capital at the Circo Massimo, an ancient Roman racing ground, according to police.

– In Japan, six couples marked International Women’s Day by filing a case suing the government for the right to use different surnames after marriage.

Under laws in place since the 19th century, married couples must choose the husband’s or the wife’s name, and about 95 percent take the man’s, according to the plantiffs’ lawyers.

– In London, protesters dressed as characters from “The Handmaid’s Tale”, Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel about a future in which women have been reduced to chattel. They held placards calling for women’s rights in Iran. 

A separate demonstration in Parliament Square highlighted the plight of women in Afghanistan, and called for the right of girls to go to school.

– French President Emmanuel Macron presided over a ceremony enshrining the right to abortion into the French constitution, the first country to make such a move.

“We will not rest until this promise is held everywhere in the world,” he said.

– France’s former prime minister Elisabeth Borne denounced the “insidious sexism” she said permeates French politics in an interview broadcast on International Women’s Day.

“Men in politics, they all have an interest in imposing masculine codes, it eliminates the competition,” she told French broadcaster RTL.

– Thousands of Congolese women dressed in black marched in the Democratic Republic of Congo to mourn those killed in conflicts in the east of the country.

They women from all walks of life gathered in Bukavu, capital of the South Kivu province in the east, which has been ravaged by decades of armed violence.

– In the Kosovar capital Pristina, women marched in a rally for to press for gender equality and to protest violence against women.

Cases of gender-based violence remain high due in part to Kosovo’s patriarchal culture, post-traumatic stress linked to war, and a legal system that has allowed domestic violence to sink deep roots. 

– In South Africa, a group of Jewish women held a march to denounce the government’s silence regarding abuse by Hamas fighters against Israeli hostages.

Organised by the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD), the women marched in the scorching Johannesburg sun under the banner “Me Too unless you are a Jew”.

– In occupied Ukraine, masked Russian soldiers in combat gear handed out flowers to women, as Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed women soldiers fighting on the frontlines.

A Russian defence ministry video showed soldiers with scarves pulled over their faces distributing flowers in Mariupol, the Ukrainian port city captured by Russian forces at the start of the war.