News1 | International Women’s Day

International Women’s Day is celebrated on March 8 worldwide. About 115 years ago, women’s movements that worked to give women equal voting rights sought a day to mark a day when all women in the world could unite on the basis of the principle of equality. It is customary to look back on the 20th century as the era of polarized ideologies such as liberalism and communism. Looking back, these ideologies shared common ideas such as promoting women’s status, encouraging women’s education and integrating them into the labor market. The woman in the 20th century became a central player in the political debate about the proper social order. International Women’s Day in 2024 should serve as a spotlight that illuminates the darkness that covers the helplessness of the international organizations in dealing with societies that promote oppressive ideologies towards women.

In the mid-1970s, the United Nations decided to declare March 8 as “International Women’s Day”. At the same time, it was decided to promote the Convention on the Prevention of Discrimination against Women in all its forms in the UN General Assembly. The Convention was adopted in 1979. Today, one of the most important bodies in the world is the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). This body works to spread the promotion of the status of women among the countries of the world.ⁱ

Apparently, the UN committee reaps successes in its hundreds of reports and demonstrates how the status of women should be promoted in various countries of the world. These reports call for the granting of equal legal rights to women, to encourage their integration in the education systems, and to promote cultural messages about women having the free right to express themselves as they see fit .

The year 2024 is a bleak year for the celebration of women’s rights. Women’s organizations at the United Nations hesitated and delayed in condemning the gender-based attack carried out by Hamas on October 7, 2023. Hundreds of women were sexually assaulted, abused, kidnapped and murdered primarily because they were women. But the organization chose weak language that obscures the extent of the systematicity and brutality of this attack However, the problem is not only the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, which for about 17 years has used an Islamic doctrine to brainwash society regarding the status of women.

Afghanistan currently has about 42 million inhabitants. In 1964, the parliament in Afghanistan granted equal rights to women in the country. Today, after the return of the Taliban to power in the country, there is not even a single woman in the country’s parliament. It was forbidden for girls to study in high schools and for women to study in universities. According to a recently published international report, women are excluded from the public sphere. ⁱⁱ In Somalia, which has a population of 18 million, girls pass the name of women and marry after they get their first period. In Iran, where 88 million people live, the headscarf protest brought millions to the streets. For the regime, the liberation of the women is the sign of the release of the hold it has on the population which is severely oppressed.

Even if international organizations, led by women’s organizations, did not come out explicitly against ideologies that promote the oppression of women and their removal from the public sphere, March 8 would be considered a meaningless gesture for millions of oppressed women in the world.