Women from all around the world flocked to the streets on Wednesday to protest the growing threats to their rights. International Women’s Day occurred, and cities all over the world saw protests, marches, and rallies. One such city was Madrid, where the wide, tree-lined boulevards were covered in a sea of purple, a colour frequently associated with women’s rights. Women gathered in front of the legislatures in Indonesia and Thailand, some of whom screamed “long live Indonesian women,” to demand the passage of a long-awaited bill safeguarding domestic workers. The Taliban government’s ban on women attending Afghan universities, Iran’s repression of Mahsa Amini protests, new American limits on abortion rights, and the effects of the Ukraine war on women are just a few of the causes of the protests.
The progress gained towards women’s rights around the world is vanishing swiftly, and it will take around three centuries to achieve gender equality, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Monday. He claimed that women’s rights are ignored, jeopardised, and infringed on a global scale. He used Afghanistan as an example, where girls and women have been kept out of public life. After a Christmas vacation, Afghan universities resumed courses on Monday, but only men did so because the Taliban’s prohibition on women attending higher education institutions remains in force even after 18 months of taking power. Prior to International Women’s Day, the European Union imposed fines on individuals and groups involved in violence against and violations of women’s rights. Iran, Russia, South Sudan, Burma, Syria, and the Taliban’s minister of higher education, Neda Mohammad Nadeem, have all been sanctioned by the European Union for violating women’s rights, namely for preventing women from pursuing higher education.