From Afghanistan under Taliban domination to France where the right to abortion is included in the Constitution, via the Democratic Republic of Congo, International Women's Rights Day mobilized this Friday, in various forms.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned of "a step backwards" for women's rights, "in both developing and developed countries", during a ceremony in New York.
France
“My body, my choices, my rights”: thousands of people, largely women, marched on Friday in Paris and in several cities in France, festive demonstrations but punctuated in the capital by tensions between pro-Palestinians and activists of a collective denouncing the Hamas rapes in Israel on October 7.
A procession joined Place Gambetta to Place de la Bastille in Paris.
AFP or licensors
“IVG, PMA, it’s my body, it’s my choice,” chanted demonstrators who met at the beginning of the afternoon at Place Gambetta in Paris.
The departure of this procession took place shortly after the end of the ceremony enshrining the freedom to resort to voluntary termination of pregnancy in the Constitution, organized at Place Vendôme in the presence of President Emmanuel Macron and numerous figures of feminism.
Italy
Thousands of people took to the streets of Rome and Milan for demonstrations calling in particular for an end to violence against women, after several highly publicized cases of feminicide.
Also read: Italian student suspected of killing his ex-girlfriend arrested in Germany after going on the run
At least 10,000 people gathered in the capital, in the Circo Massimo, a vestige of ancient Rome, according to police.
There were about a thousand of them in Milan, where a sign read “Girls just want to have basic human rights.”
Others voiced their opposition to far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Merloni, who describes herself as a “Christian mother” and is opposed to abortion.
Ireland
The Irish were called to the polls on Friday for a referendum intended to modernize the references to women and the family in their Constitution, written in 1937 when the Catholic Church reigned in the country over public and private life.
The first question concerned the definition of family, and proposed expanding it beyond that based on marriage, to also include “lasting relationships” such as cohabiting couples and their children.
The second question proposed erasing a reference deemed outdated on the role of women in the home, which suggests that they have a duty to take care of other people under their roof.
Türkiye
Hundreds of women began to gather at the end of the day in a street leading to Istanbul's Taksim Square, which as in previous years was closed to access.
Police officers formed cordons in the neighborhood to prevent any gatherings on or in the immediate vicinity of Taksim Square, AFP journalists noted.
A protester near Taksim Square in Istanbul.
A march was also planned in the capital, Ankara, on an artery where demonstrations have also been banned for several years.
Russia
War celebration in Moscow and occupied Ukrainian regions, where members of the armed forces distributed flowers to passers-by.
President Vladimir Putin praised the women participating in the offensive in Ukraine.
In his speech, he said he paid special tribute to those "who carry out combat missions."
According to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, more than 300,000 women “serve and work in the armed forces” of Russia.
In a video message, he thanked the mothers of soldiers fighting in Ukraine: “You have raised true patriots and valiant defenders of the homeland.”
In recent weeks, wives of mobilized soldiers had organized demonstrations in front of the Kremlin to demand that their husbands be brought back from the front.
Iran
Iran's violent repression of largely peaceful protests and "institutionalized discrimination" against women and girls has led to "crimes against humanity", a report by experts commissioned by the Human Rights Council said on Friday of the UN man.
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Many of the serious human rights violations documented in the report "constitute crimes against humanity, in particular murder, imprisonment, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, persecution , forced disappearances and other inhumane acts", underline these experts commissioned after the demonstrations which shook Iran from September 2022, in response to the death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman of 22, arrested by the morality police for not seeing the hijab worn correctly.
Afghanistan
Women demonstrated discreetly and as best they could, the repression of the Taliban authorities against them preventing them from going out into the streets.
In several provinces, they gathered in small numbers to demand that the restrictions on their rights, such as their exclusion from secondary education and universities, be lifted.
In Takhar province (north-east), images published by feminist activists showed seven women holding papers in front of their faces, with the inscription “Rights, Justice, Freedom”.
Takhar Women Protest Taliban Atrocities, Demand Accountability
On March 8, Takhar Women's Movement called on the United Nations to ensure accountability for the Taliban's war crimes, gender apartheid, and numerous other atrocities inflicted upon the people.#aamajnews pic.twitter.com/qpjYNDIWCX
— Aamaj News English (@aamajnews_EN) March 7, 2024
In Balkh (north), several women posed in front of a banner with the words “Save the women of Afghanistan”.
Government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid responded that the Taliban, which returned to power in 2021, respected women's rights within the framework of Islam.
Pakistan
Hundreds of women demonstrated in the country's major cities, a mobilization criticized by conservative religious groups who accuse it of importing Western values.
Demonstrators in Islamabad, capital of Pakistan.
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“We face all kinds of violence: physical, sexual, cultural, women are exchanged to settle disputes, child marriages, rape, harassment at work, in the streets,” listed Farzana Bari, organizer main event in Islamabad, where hundreds of women gathered to dance, sing and listen to speeches.
Democratic Republic of Congo
For this usually festive and colorful day, thousands of Congolese women dressed in black, as a sign of mourning for the deaths of the conflicts in the east of the country.
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“We, the women of Congo, refuse war, rape and the pillaging of our resources,” proclaimed the banners and banners brandished by several thousand of them who marched in the streets of Bukavu, capital of South Congo. Kivu, one of the eastern provinces ravaged by decades of armed violence.
South Africa
Nearly 200 women and activists marched at the call of the South African Jewish Council under the banner “Me Too except for the Jews”, to denounce rapes and abuses committed by Hamas on Israeli hostages in Gaza.
Also read: Hamas sexual violence on October 7: behind the scenes of a long, painful and difficult investigation
“We are deeply saddened by the horrors and atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists,” said one of the organizers, Gabriella Farber Cohen, denouncing the silence of President Cyril Ramaphosa.