Women rallied worldwide yesterday to demand equal rights and protest against domestic violence and growing poverty in the global economic crisis as they marked International Women's Day.
Thousands gathered in public squares from Bangalore to Kinshasa to the capitals of Europe, drawing attention to discrimination and fears facing women in their respective countries.
For Europeans, deteriorating financial security in the face of recession has made life more precarious for women workers.
"Masculine globalization equals female poverty" read a banner at a march in Madrid, while in Warsaw calls for equality were linked to paycheques: "Equal rights, equal pay."
"When, in times of crisis, jobs become scarce, women are often the ones who are the first to go," said Helga Schwitzer, a leader of Germany's powerful IG Metall union.
U.S. President Barack Obama said women are "vital" to solving world challenges and called for "the full and active participation of women around the world."
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton celebrated women's untapped potential but lamented that "no nation in the world has yet achieved full equality for women."
The Vatican took a different spin on Women's Day, proclaiming what has liberated western women the most is none other than the washing machine.
"The debate is still open. Some say it was the pill, others the liberalization of abortion, or being able to work outside the home. Others go even further: the washing machine," the official Vatican newspaper said.
Indian activists in Bangalore, in India's south, met in parks and open areas to protest a spate of violent attacks on women by religious extremists in the name of "moral policing."
In Africa, women called attention to the plight of their sex in war zones. About 10,000 women marched in the streets of Kinshasa to protest massive and savage violence against women and children using them as a weapon of war.
In Iraq, despite post-war reconstruction, many women are too poor to provide for their families, according to a report by aid agency Oxfam, published to mark International Women's Day.
"I was convinced that I could improve conditions for women, but I ran into a wall," said Nawal al-Samarrai, Iraq's former minister for women's rights, who resigned in despair over lack of support last month.
Muslim women around the world are facing a "growing crisis" as Islamic governments fail to honour commitments to end inequality and violence against them, warned Yakin Erturk, the United Nations' rapporteur on violence against women.
