Political and social issues highlight International Women’s Day events

Goal to raise awareness of contributions of and challenges to women.

Sunday marks the celebration of International Women’s Day, observed annually in March during Women’s History Month.

This year also marks the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment and women’s right to vote.

That convergence comes as the country is in the midst of a pivotal presidential election year.

“We believe it’s so important, that’s exactly what we want to focus on,” said Agnes Scott President Leocadia I. Zak, noting the current elections going on in this country and “the impact of gender and voting around the world as well.”

Women continue to be underrepresented in most political institutions across the globe, Zak said. Today, women compose only 24% of the world’s parliamentarians, despite constituting at least half of the world’s population.

“Students are very engaged in everything from getting out the vote to registering to vote,” she said. “They do see the need to have more women involved in the political system, but also that a vote counts.”

The all-women’s institution of

about 1,080 students in DeKalb Countyplanstocommemorate the day with a free concert by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra on its campus Sunday. The concert, a partnership with the school, will celebrate civil rights icon Rosa Parks.

Agnes Scott focuses on women in general, women’s rights and women’s accomplishments all year round, said Zak. One of those issues is human trafficking, which Covenant House Georgia is highlighting right near International Women’s Day.

The Atlanta-based organization’s annual fundraising event, Women Unite SleepOut, this weekend highlights youth homelessness and trafficking. More than 40 women came to Covenant House and talked with young women and girls who have been homeless and in some cases trafficked on the streets of Atlanta. The group then headed into town to deliver necessities to other homeless youths around what’s become known as Atlanta’s “bridge to nowhere,” the abandoned bridge near Northside Drive. Back at Covenant House, the women spent a night outside with only a cardboard box and sleeping bag.

This is the group’s fourth annual camping out event, and it’s always held around International Women’s Day, said Kellie Glenn, Covenant House’s director of development. The event is meant to raise awareness of the hundreds of young people — many of them women and girls — who are homeless in Atlanta each night, she said.

AGNES SCOTT COLLEGE One of the buttons created by an Agnes Scott College student to promote Women’s History Month.