On March 8 the world will celebrate the 100th edition of International Women’s Day. Women’s movements are obviously thrilled at the fact. Politicians are drooling at the opportunity this presents and there will be a lot of impassioned speeches.
Women have marched throughout a whole century to demand equal treatment, respect, and a life free from discrimination and violence.
Our challenge is to listen to the echoes of their footsteps, and remember that they are still marching.
In the past year, there were several moments that revealed the world’s ignorance regarding the rights of women.
An Iranian woman, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani still has a death sentence hanging over her for adultery and the alleged murder of her husband. She has been paraded on national television and forced to re-enact her husband’s murder on camera.
There has been an international outcry to pressure the Iranian government to reverse its sentence, yet in November Iran came close to earning a seat on the executive board of a United Nations agency focusing on the equality of women.
Other nominations and appointments to the board were also debatable. For instance, Saudi Arabia deems it illegal for women to drive and they have a spot on the board.
But on the international stage, diplomacy trumps rationality and women become pawns in the political games that leaders play.
There have been recent incidents which raised the ire of women’s rights groups.
In November last year, 72-year-old Ama Hemmah was burned to death in Ghana on suspicion of being a witch. The incident triggered an outcry from the country’s human rights groups. An evangelical pastor was among five people accused of dousing her in kerosene and setting her alight.
A month before this incident, 86 women in Malawi, most of them elderly, were jailed for up to six years with hard labour for practising witchcraft. Women's rights groups pressured president Bingu wa Mutharika to release them since witchcraft is not a crime under Malawian law.
In India’s Barwani district a peaceful women’s protest on Dec. 28 earned protesters criminal charges. They were marching to lament a surge in maternal deaths; district officials were not impressed.
The list is long.
Women in the developed world do not fare that well either – Stephen Harper’s government has proven that sidelining women until voting time is the norm.
In 2006, the Harper government announced that it would shut 12 out of 16 Status of Women’s offices throughout Canada. Harper also eliminated the $1 million Status of Women Independent Research Fund. Last year, the federal government decided not to fund abortion as part of its new G8 maternal health initiative.
This is despite the pledge he made on
Jan. 18, 2006, just three weeks before he took the oath of office.
It was then, when he was trying to win votes, that he told the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action: “I’m ready to support women’s human rights and I agree that Canada has to do more to meet its international obligations to women’s equality.” He promised that if elected he would “take concrete and immediate measures, as recommended by the United Nations, to ensure that Canada fully upholds its commitments to women.”
Politicians seem to pounce upon the women’s rights debate when it is convenient for their political survival; that feigned interest further complicates the effort to establish universal human rights for women.
After a whole century, we still struggle to provide an environment in which women can consider themselves truly free of the prejudice that surrounds them.
The United Nations has made a step in that direction. It has created an arm of the UN called UN Women, which combines four formerly separate UN women’s agencies into one mega-agency. It was set to start operations at the beginning of this year.
This new mega-agency seeks to rally member states to agree on international standards for gender equality and help countries implement those standards.
As novel as that sounds, it still depends on the willingness of those member states to implement the standards. How are they going to deal with those members for which there are clear indicators of the abuse of women? Are they equipped to challenge these states? Will diplomacy still triumph over rationality?
The hope is that we recognize and appreciate women for having fought the hard fight. It's also important to remember that when women are vulnerable, so is society at large. Not only do they drive industry, but they are a key milestone in measuring a nation’s well-being.
In the US, several women’s organizations and individuals are currently lobbying for the passing of a bi-partisan bill that would become the International Violence Against Women Act. The legislation would require the US State Department to draw up a five-year plan to reduce violence against women in up to 20 target countries.
In Canada, Rona Ambrose, minister of Public Works and Government Services and minister for Status of Women, launched Women’s History Month in October 2010 in order to celebrate women’s contributions in business and the national economy.
These were positive strides.Though the centennial celebration of International Women’s Day is approaching, it should be remembered that women have been marching beyond those 100 years. Their footsteps should echo in our collective conscience and remind us of how we are at a loss for not hearing their voices.