Celebrate International Women's Day!
5 March 2010
“Equal rights, equal opportunities: Progress for all” is the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day celebrated on 8th March. On this day, we celebrate the economic, political and social achievements of women throughout the world. However it is recognized that many gender inequalities still exist, particularly for girls and young women.
WAGGGS is calling for the girl child to be placed at the centre of policy in the following four areas: girls’ empowerment; education and training; adolescent health and rights; and participation in decision making. WAGGGS believes that girls and young women are the most crucial group of people which should be supported to ensure opportunities for all – empowered girls become women who invest in their families and starts a process of education and care which breaks the poverty cycle and results in better educated, healthier communities: however, we are still some way from achieving the full implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the Millennium Development Goals, particularly those which affect the girl child. Although some mechanisms have been put in place by the European Union and the Council of Europe to tackle gender equality, such as the EU Roadmap for Equality between women and men (2006-2010), many areas of inequality still need to be addressed.
How can you get involved?
- Visit the WAGGGS action page, and find out about the WAGGGS poster competition ‘girls worldwide say no to violence against women’
- Find out what events are taking place in your country to celebrate International Women’s Day on the IWD website. Upload information about your own event, or your own article, video, photo or podcast for the day
- Download the WAGGGS Statement for the 54th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) and find out why it is so important that the girl child is placed at the centre of policies on education, empowerment, adolescent health and participation in decision-making
- Send a message of support to the WAGGGS members participating in the CSW in New York, where they are talking to country delegations, UN agencies and other NGOs to ensure that the girl child is at the centre of efforts to implement the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action
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Did you know…. The representation of women in the 2009-elected European Parliament is 35% (it was 27.5% in 1996 and 31.2% in 2004) source Swedish Presidency report Beijing+15 Less than 50 out of 736 MEPs are younger than 35. Less than 20 out of 736 MEPs are young females aged less than 35 Although young women record a higher level of educational attainment than men in almost all EU member states, until now the generally high skill levels of women are not fully reflected in the jobs they do There is a persistent gender average pay gap between women and men of 17.6% across the EU In the economic field, women represent on average almost one-third of leaders of businesses in the EU, but in most countries the share is lower than that |
