World wakes to women’s roar on International Women’s Day

Tens of thousands defy virus restrictions, gathering worldwide to denounce gender violence and inequalities.

Women's rights activists at a protest rally organised by the Alliance of Internationalist Feminists in Berlin to commemorate International Women's Day. Picture: Getty Images

Tens of thousands of women­ ­defied coronavirus restrictions, gathering worldwide on International Women’s Day to denounce gender violence and inequalities.

Women took to the streets in peaceful democracies and in countries gripped by conflict, though in far smaller numbers than last year, when the full force of the pandemic had yet to hit.

Thousands marched in Mexico City, bringing with them ­photos with the names of alleged rapists, murderers and harassers of women.

Thousands of women also marched in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which has seen a wave of femicide that has claimed on average one life per day so far this year.

More than 100 activists wearing purple to symbolise women’s struggle gathered outside the prosecutor’s office in Honduras to demand justice for nurse Keyla Martinez, 26, who died in police custody last month. Honduras’ human rights watchdog says 4769 women were murdered in the country ­between 2010 and 2020.

In France, where one woman is killed every three days by their partner or ex-partner, according to 2019 government figures, tens of thousands marched in major cities to call for stronger police ­action against femicide.

In Turkey, several hundred Muslim Uighur women protested near China’s walled-off consulate in Istanbul, calling for the closure of mass-incarceration camps in the Xinjiang region.

Nearly 2000 people gathered in Kiev to demand that Ukraine ratify the Istanbul Convention against domestic abuse.

In Spain, Madrid banned gathering over the virus, but a few dozen women gathered nevertheless, standing at a safe distance from each other to hold up signs with feminist slogans.

Several thousand demonstrators massed in Barcelona for a ­socially distanced march, wearing purple masks and carrying posters with slogans such as: “The real pandemic is machismo.”

In Greece, where the media has been full of stories about sexual harassment, hundreds of women gathered in Athens’ central Syntagma Square to mark the country’s own #MeToo movement.

In the Polish capital Warsaw, men and women protested a near-total ban on abortion following a recent tightening of the rules.

In India, women thronged the outskirts of the capital to join forces with farmers staging a months-long protest against controversial agricultural reforms. Many were massless and ignored social distancing, despite India having one of Asia’s highest coronavirus infection and death rates.

There were also marches across deeply conservative Pakistan, while hundreds gathered in The Philippines capital Manila.

AFP