The demonstrations of Buenos Aires in Lagos demand justice for victims of femicide and encourage reforms to protect women.
Demonstrators went down to the streets of Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas to mark International Women’s Day, with a lot of end of violence and inequality based on the sexes.
In cities like Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Saturday, these warnings were particularly serious, while the demonstrators wrote against the austerity plans set out by President Javier Milei who, according to them, will provide services for women.
The Milei government has closed the ministry of women, sexes and the diversity of the country and plans to strike “femicide” – the term for the murder of women in the context of gender violence – of the country’s penal code. His Minister of Justice described the term “distortion of the concept of equality”, saying that this indicates a higher value for the lives of women.
Buenos Aires reports, Teresa Bo of Al Jazeera, said the demonstrators say that this decision is particularly harmful since a woman is killed every 30 hours in the country. A UN report published last year revealed that around 60% of women and girls killed in 2023 were murdered by their intimate partner or a close relative.
“Women here say that they have been fighting for too long, that they will not go back, that they would not be silent,” said BO. “They say that their fight is too important, and that is why they say they will continue with their struggle in the streets.”
Hundreds of women in Ecuador paraded in the capital Quito holding signs that opposed violence and the “patriarchal system”.
“Justice for our daughters!” The demonstrators have shouted to support women killed in recent years.
In Bolivia, thousands of women started walking on Friday evening, with scratching graffiti on the walls of the courts, demanding that their rights be respected and denouncing impunity in femicides, with less than half of these cases reaching the determination of the sentence.
In many European countries, women have also protested violence, for better access to health care specific to gender, equal salary and other questions in which there are still disparities with men.
In Poland, activists have opened a center in front of the Parliament in Warsaw where women can go for medical abortions, also called non -surgical abortions, alone or with other women.
The opening of the center of the International Women’s Day in front of the Legislative Assembly was a symbolic challenge for the traditionally Roman Catholic Nation authorities, which has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe.
The demonstrators also went down to the streets of Madrid, Spain.
Some demonstrators have held photos drawn by hand representing Gisele Pelicot, a Frenchwoman who was drugged by her ex-husband in France during a decade so that she can be raped by dozens of men while being unconscious.
Pelicot has become a symbol for women from all over Europe in the fight against sexual violence.
In the Nigerian capital of Lagos, thousands of women gathered at the Mobolaji Johnson stadium, dancing and singing and celebrating their femininity.
Many were dressed in purple – the traditional color of the women’s liberation movement.
In Russia, women’s day celebrations had official connotations, with soldiers of the honor guard with yellow tulips to girls and women during a celebration in Saint Petersburg.
In Ukraine, a ceremony took place in the city of Kharkiv to commemorate women who died by fighting the invasion of Russia.
