Women strike, protest as the world marks Int’l Women’s Day
MADRID — Women across Europe and Asia shouted their demands for equality, respect and empowerment Thursday to mark International Women’s Day, with protesters in Spain launching a 24-hour strike and crowds of demonstrators filling the streets of Manila, Seoul and New Delhi.
Spanish women were staging dozens of protests across the country against the wage gap and gender violence. In Barcelona, protesters disrupting traffic into the city centre were pushed back by riot police.
In Madrid, hundreds of women gathered in its central square to demand change. Teresa Sonsur, a 38-year-old social services agency worker, said she wanted to end workplace discrimination.
“What we see in our job in social services is that the women are doing all the hard work, dealing with the customers, but in the positions of management it is always men,” she said.
In some countries, protests were more muted.
International Women’s Day is a public holiday in Russia, but opposition presidential candidate Ksenia Sobchak was one of the few demonstrators in Moscow. Sobchak staged a solo picket outside the lower house of the Russian parliament to demand the resignation of a prominent Actresses Asia Argento, right, and Rose McGowan participate in a rally to mark the International Women’s Day in Rome.
lawmaker whom several female journalists accuse of sexual harassment.
On a lighter note, a leading French newspaper found a witty way of making its point about discrimination and the gender pay gap — by upping its price for men. The left-leaning daily Liberation said that for one day only, men would pay 50 euro cents more than women, in a reflection of the 25 per cent less that women in France are paid, on average.
French President Emmanuel Macron vowed to name and shame companies that don’t respect the law on gender equality. Across Asia, women came out to mark the day. In China, students at Tsinghua University used the day to make light of a proposed constitutional amendment to scrap term limits for the country’s president. One banner joked that a boyfriend’s term should also have no limits. But photos of the students’ banners, like other content about the proposed amendment, were quickly censored on social media.
At rallies in the Pakistan capital Islamabad, its largest city Karachi, and the cultural capital of Lahore, women denounced violence against them, where nearly 1,000 women are killed by close relatives each year in socalled honour killings. Pakistani women have largely been deprived of their rights since the country gained independence in 1947.
Hundreds of activists in pink and purple shirts protested in downtown Manila against Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, calling him among the worst violators of women’s rights in Asia. Protest leaders sang and danced in a boisterous rally in Plaza Miranda, handing red and white roses to mothers, sisters and widows of drug suspects slain under Duterte’s crackdown on illegal drugs. Human rights groups have condemned Duterte’s sexist remarks, including
one in which he asked troops to shoot female communist rebels in the genitals.
In Afghanistan, hundreds of women, who would have been afraid to leave their homes during Taliban rule, gathered in the capital to commemorate the day.
Hundreds of South Koreans, many wearing black and holding black #MeToo signs, rallied in central Seoul. South Korea’s #MeToo movement has gained significant traction since January, when a female prosecutor began speaking openly about workplace mistreatment and sexual misconduct. Several highprofile South Korean men have resigned from positions of power, including a governor who was a leading presidential contender before he was accused of repeatedly raping his female secretary.
In India, hundreds of women, including students, teachers and sex workers, marched through the capital to bring attention to domestic violence, sexual attacks and discrimination in jobs and wages. India had its first female leader in 1966 when Indira Gandhi became prime minister, but Indian women are still often relegated to second-class citizenship.
In Africa, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni urged men to stop physically abusing their wives. Domestic violence is common in Uganda, although victims rarely report perpetrators to the police for fear of being stigmatized or thrown out of their homes.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, considered by many to be one of the world’s most powerful women, said in a video message the struggle for greater equality in Germany and worldwide must continue. She said “many women before us have made sacrifices and fought persistently so that women would have more rights ... but there’s still a lot to do.”
In Rome, Catholic women challenged Pope Francis to give women a greater voice. Former Irish president Mary McAleese, an outspoken advocate for women’s ordination and gay rights, accused the church’s all-male leadership of refusing to change their entrenched second-class status.
Asia Argento, an Italian actress who helped launch the #MeToo movement, said she is launching a new movement, #WeToo, which aims to unite women against the power imbalance in favour of men.