Responses to International Women's Day

Md. Masum Billah

Globally on March 08, thousands of events take place to inspire women and to celebrate achievements connecting women from all around the world. Their activities range from political rallies, business conferences, governmental works and networking events to fashion parades and more. Why is this day observed?

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 1.0 billion adults in the world. Two out of every three of them are women. 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, 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 participation 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 the weakest in Asia, four of these 10 held office in this region. Only 14.1 per cent of the representatives elected to Parliaments around the world are women, up from 11.7 in 1997. The percentage of female cabinet ministers worldwide has risen from 3.0 in 1987 to 6.2 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 themselves speak out why we should observe Women's Day internationally.

International women's Day has been observed since the early 1900's, a time of great expansion and turbulence in the industrialised world that saw booming population growth and the rise of radical ideologies. Great unrest and critical debate were taking place among women. Women's oppression and inequality were spurring women to become more vocal and active in the campaign 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 February 28, 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 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 honoured the first time in Australia, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland on March 19. More than one million women and men attended International Women's Day rallies, campaigning for women's rights to work, to vote, be trained, to hold public office and to end discrimination. However, less than a week later on March 25 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 last Sunday in February, 1913. On 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 the strike until four days later when the Czar was forced to abdicate and the provisional government granted women the right to vote.

Showing due respect, the Day is now observed as an official holiday in China, Armenia, Russia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. This tradition encourages men honouring their mothers, wives, girlfriends and 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 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 labour force has grown and legislation that promises equal opportunities for women and respect for their human rights has been adopted in many countries. The world now has an ever-growing number of women participating in the society as policy makers. In Bangladesh, over the last several years various programmes have been undertaken both at government and non-government initiatives. The Female Secondary School Stipend Programme ( FSSAP) of the government has exceeded its targets. Beginning as an experiment in 1982 by a local NGO in a single upazila with the 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 programme which provided incentives to keep girls in schools and resulted in large increase in enrolments, delays in the age of marriage, a 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 awareness among females who are involved in their children's education. Girls' enrolment has increased from an average 0f 7.9 per cent to 14 per cent in some areas and drop-out rates have fallen from 14.7 to 3.5.

In 1993 the Adolescent Development Programme 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 the vulnerable adolescent, especially girls of the villages. Now there exist about 8500 Adolescent Centers throughout the country with 215050 members. The ADP club is its one-room rendezvous of a village which not only contains reading materials but also has 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 per cent growth of the economy. Yet girls do not often get the facility to receive education in the poor countries that would benefit most from the economic growth. Until the men and women work together to secure the full potentials of women, lasting solutions to the world's most serious social, economic and political problems will not be found.

The writer is Senior Manager: BRAC Education Program, PACE. He can be reached at

e-mail: mmbillah2000@yahoo.com