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On March 8, the world celebrates International Women’s Day, and this year’s celebration highlights the transformative power of equal participation between genders, according to United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres.
In a video message for International Women’s Day, Guterres said: “We are seeing it ourselves at the UN, where I am proud to have achieved gender parity in UN leadership positions for the first time in history.” .
She confirmed that the evidence is clear that when women lead the government, they see greater investments in social protection and greater progress against poverty.
“When women are in parliament, countries adopt stricter climate change policies, and when women are at the peace table, agreements are more durable,” Guterres said, “and now women occupy the same number. from leadership positions at the UN, we are seeing even more concerted action to ensure peace, sustainable development and human rights. “
He said that in a world dominated by men, gender equality is essentially a question of power, and assured that men are an essential part of the solution.
The UN Secretary General called on countries, companies and institutions to adopt measures and special quotas to promote equal participation of women and achieve rapid change.
He added that as the world recovers from the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, support and stimulus packages should specifically target women and girls. This would be done through a number of efforts, including investments in women-owned businesses and the care economy.
“Recovering from a pandemic is our opportunity to leave behind generations of exclusion and inequality,” he said.
Guterres said that whether they lead a country, a company or a popular movement, women are making contributions that are fulfilling for all and driving progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
“It is time to build an egalitarian future, which is a job for all and for the benefit of all,” he said.
During her speech, Guterres said that the COVID-19 pandemic has erased decades of progress toward gender equality.
Guterres noted that women’s lives have changed and their rights have been eroded, either by massive job losses or by the explosion in the burden of unpaid care.
Women’s lives have also been significantly affected by the disruption of schooling and a growing crisis of domestic violence and exploitation, among other problems. Mothers, especially single mothers, have faced great anxiety and adversity.
Guterres noted that the consequences will last much longer than the pandemic, even though women are at the forefront of the response to the pandemic.
They are the essential workers who keep people alive and hold economies, communities and families together, he said. Women are also among the leaders who have maintained the lowest prevalence rates and countries on the road to recovery.
In particular, the world celebrates International Women’s Day every year on March 8, with the first celebration taking place in 1856 when thousands of women took to the streets of New York City.
They were protesting the inhumane conditions in which they were forced to work, prompting the police to come out in force to disperse the demonstrations.
However, the march managed to pressure officials and politicians to put the problem of working women on the daily agenda and highlight it as an urgent issue that must be considered.
This scene was repeated on March 8, 1908, when thousands of textile workers demonstrated again, again on the streets of New York. This time, they brought dry bread and bouquets of flowers, in a symbolic context of their protest movement. The march called for the reduction of working hours, an end to child labor and granting women the right to vote.
Consequently, the celebration of March 8 began as a day for women in the United States, and later in European countries, who came to consider the date as women’s day.
As for the rest of the world, March 8 gained more ground in 1977 when the United Nations (UN) issued a resolution calling on the countries of the world to adopt any day of the year they choose to celebrate women.
Most countries decided to choose March 8 as that day, and in 1987 the United States Congress expanded the scope of the women’s celebration to last for an entire month.
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