International Womens' Day was declared an official day of observance by the UN in 1975. On this day the achievements of women are celebrated and awareness is created about the unequal treatment girls and women are still facing today.
This year's theme for International Women’s Day is “Time is Now: Rural and urban activists transforming women’s lives”.
Girls and women in rural communities are among the people most likely to be poor, to lack access to finances, land, education, health care and other essential services, and they are the ones to be hit hardest by climate change. However, without girls and women the communities would not function. Girls and women look after livestock, work on the land, fetch the daily water and wood, care for the children and elderly and look after the family household.
We must make sure girls have the same rights as boys. We must make sure they have the same chances to get an education, own land, find work and get the same pay for the same work. Unfortunately this is not so in many places!
Worldwide more than 31 million girls do not attend school. In the three countries listed below there are many girls that are not in school: In Nigeria there are almost five and a half million girls out of school, in Pakistan, over three million girls and in Ethiopia, over one million girls. (Unesco, 2013) And almost everywhere in the world, women still earn much less money than men for the same work while the most highly regarded and rewarded positions in business and government are still held by men.
So let's work together on finding ways to help girls and women to get the same changes in life than boys and men do. #PressForProgress #IWD2018 #TimeIsNow
And let's celebrate the women in our lives!
Women's Day Infographic - International Womens' Day 2018
Read more: Photo Essay: Rural Women
source: UN Women and WomandsDay
image: 1. Riccardo Meyer/shutterstock.com 2. Gilles Paire/shutterstock.com