Join us for live coverage as people around the world mark IWD2016. Plus we’re asking: “What does equality mean to you?” Add your thoughts on Twitter or in the comments
2.43pm GMT
To mark IWD, a coalition of Amazonian indigenous women are due to march in the city of Puyo, Ecuador, calling for the cancellation of an oil contract that could destroy parts of the Amazon rainforest. In January the government of Ecuador signed a contract with Chinese oil company Andes Petroleum, handing over rights to explore and drill for oil.
The women are being joined by the members of the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network and Amazon Watch. The women have already launched a petition against the contract.
2.36pm GMT
What does equality mean to you? Mabel van Oranje, board chair of Girls Not Brides: The Global Partnership to End Child Marriage, says:
For me, equality means being able to choose if, who – and when – to marry. Sadly 15 million girls each year don’t have that choice. Their wedding day is very often the day they are forced to leave school, family and friends, to become a bride before age 18. The consequences are devastating for a girl – ending her education, putting her at risk of childbirth while still a child, robbing her of a childhood. Child marriage is a major human rights abuse and it also undermines efforts to eradicate global poverty.
2.35pm GMT
A fire station in Newtown, Australia, got attention for its show of support on IWD.
Newtown Fire Station wins International Women's Day https://t.co/7wJMcHXqOk pic.twitter.com/ahzS0qJ4Pw
2.32pm GMT
Earlier in this blog, we reported the horrific story of a 15-year-old Indian girl who was raped and set alight on Monday evening. Sam Jones gives us an update:
The 15-year-old is now fighting for her life in hospital. The attack is the latest in a series of assaults that have convulsed India and shocked the world.
The incident highlights the prevalence of such violence, despite a public outcry four years ago that led to stronger laws to prevent sexual assault.
2.29pm GMT
The great-granddaughter of Emmeline Pankhurst has criticised Tory cabinet minister Priti Patel for claiming the suffragettes were fighting for the same cause as those who want Britain to leave the EU.
Helen Pankhurst said it was “unacceptable” to use her ancestor’s achievements to promote Brexit, after Patel, the employment minister, claimed the suffragettes and leave campaigners were fighters for democratic freedom.
2.26pm GMT
Oh dear. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has caused a stir by saying he believes “a woman is above all else a mother”, in a speech marking IWD.
2.23pm GMT
Cambodia: Cambodia is one of the few countries where International Women’s Day is a public holiday, AP reports, and its long-serving leader marked the occasion with an apparently tongue-in-cheek call for protecting men’s rights.
Prime minister Hun Sen, better known for savaging his political enemies than joking about family life, said many men in Cambodia are oppressed by wives who do not let them go to wedding parties for fear that they would eye prettier women. He said he didn’t think he was being extreme in demanding that an association be set up to promote men’s rights.
2.23pm GMT
Zofeen Ebrahim has been asking young people their views about sex and rights. Paula Melisa Trad Mamod, 24, a human rights activist from Argentina raising awareness about violence against women and unsafe abortion, says:
Stop making sex a taboo for us. I hold the church responsible for propagating harmful messages with just one and only truth and just one side of the story that they are comfortable with, and using religion as a barrier for young people in accessing [sexual and reproductive health] services. They say sex is only for procreation and it’s a sin if the element of pleasure enters.
2.15pm GMT
What does equality mean to you? Winfred Ongom, from White Ribbon Alliance Uganda, says:
What I think of IWD in regard to gender equality is that women should be able to enjoy their human rights so that they are able to participate in all areas of public and private life irrespective of status.
2.13pm GMT
2.00pm GMT
The latest from the ODI’s #genderday
Arifa Nasim, the 18-year-old founder of Educate2Eradicate and a youth delegate to the UN for the UK, just lit up a discussion about the psychosocial well-being of adolescent girls with her eloquent call for change on FGM and child marriage.
Reminding the audience that FGM is “child abuse”, Nasim said: “There is a lot of focus, especially in this country, on justice … There has been a huge push in terms of getting prosecutions … but what we are actually missing out is the psychosocial effects.” She said more support was needed for girls who stand against FGM, stressing how horribly alone they often find themselves.
1.52pm GMT
In Malawi, Global development editor Lucy Lamble spoke to Virginia Kachigunda, deputy director for school health and nutrition at the education ministry, who explains why it is girls who particularly suffer when the rains don’t come.
When problems like a drought occur, it is the girl child which is pulled out of school - not willingly, but the demands to care are placed on the shoulders of the girl child. She has to go out and look for food, some of these girls are engaged in transactional sex. So we are really at a point where we need support. Girls are dropping out of school because they are trying to support the families, maybe the mothers are out to hunt for food and the girl is taking care of children at home. Or else it is the girl going out, doing some small, small business to bring money at home, so this is a situation which will eventually recycle poverty in these families.
This is a deliberate action that government has done to make sure that we can bring back the girls who missed their way. They can do well! I am one of these girls: I had my baby when I was in form one and I went back to school. Now I am a deputy director here. So that is happening, some girls are going back to school and excelling.
1.49pm GMT
What does equality mean to you? Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the executive director of UN Women, says:
Equality means an equal world without barriers to girls’ dreams and achievements.
To arrive at the future we want, we cannot leave anyone behind. We have to start with those who are the least regarded. These are largely women and girls, although in poor and troubled areas, they can also include boys and men.
1.44pm GMT
The Scotsman is celebrating IWD by rebranding itself the Scotswoman. It also carries a poll revealing one in four Scots say they have witnessed gender discrimination in their place of work.
1.42pm GMT
1.37pm GMT
Show us how you’re marking IWD. We received this photo from rural Nepal, where women marched for equality.
Raleigh Nepal worked alongside women's cooperatives in the state of Makwanpur to organise a march between rural communities. Marchers walked with placards bearing pledges for equality, chosen by the women's co-operative.
At the finish line - a local school - the women ran an exhibition of poetry, short stories and artwork on the theme of gender rights. Over 100 children from the school also submitted entries. The exhibition was predominantly aimed at girls but was also open to boys who wanted to recognise the contributions and hard work of the women around them.
Sent via GuardianWitness
By RaleighInt
8 March 2016, 11:20
1.34pm GMT
Indian cricket star Virat Kohli has marked IWD with an apology on behalf of men perpetrating violence and discrimination against women.
Sorry for the jerks, the cat-callers, the stalkers. Don't let them ruin it for the rest of us. Happy Women's Day pic.twitter.com/dZPbmwSymA
1.32pm GMT
In Malawi, Global development editor Lucy Lamble met Annie Namakhwa. Namakhwa, 36, has four children and lives in Neno district in the south of the country. She is struggling to survive because of the drought, and her dreams for her daughter’s schooling have had to take a back seat to the daily struggle to survive.
I had four goats which we sold to pay for my elder daughter’s school fees. She should be in secondary level, but then as things went on, the school fees are 5,700 kwacha and I just couldn’t sustain that and now my daughter is back home. We thought that if maybe we’d had a better harvest, out of that we could have been able to raise school fees and get her back to school, but as things are, she’ll have to wait a little longer … I want my daughters to get an education and get a good job that they can do with their education, and support their siblings and it’s my prayer that God answers it.
1.28pm GMT
On the Guardian’s Tumblr page, Guardian colleague Elena Cresci has compiled a list of the women we should all be reading about on IWD. From Afghan rapper and activist Sonita Alizadeh to genetic scientist Emmanuelle Charpentier, the list is full of women deserving praise every day.
1.24pm GMT
What does equality mean to you? Dunya Maumoon, foreign minister of the Maldives, said:
When a woman is empowered, all of society thrives. When you give a girl the gift of education, she educates an entire community. When women are given a platform to speak, we witness transformative change.
“Despite the immeasurable contribution of women to our societies, we still live in a world where women and girls are considered inferior. Their rights are being violated too often. Their potential at large still remains untapped. Our failure to close the gender gap remains one of the greatest injustices of our times.
1.19pm GMT
Do men and women read differently? It appears so.
Men and women are equally likely to finish a book – but men decide much faster than women if they like a story or not, according to analysis of reading habits by Jellybooks.
1.16pm GMT
The thoughts of Duncan Green, senior strategic adviser at Oxfam, on IWD2016
1.11pm GMT
1.09pm GMT
What does equality mean to you? Here’s what Liberal Democrat peer and the former UK development minister Lynne Featherstone says:
Winning! Never again having to fight the historic power-hogging political, religious and cultural forces that have oppressed and suppressed women through the centuries. Justice would be done.
1.06pm GMT
The fight for gender is not just marches and banners any more, writes Laura Bates for the Guardian’s opinion pages. Women around the world are increasingly finding innovative ways to make their voice heard, including confetti guns, rock music, mail-outs on sanitary towels, body armour art and much more. She writes:
Green, white and purple sashes, powerful placards and large-scale marches – these are the hallmarks of feminist protest from days gone by. But while the suffragettes, and other activists, might have firmly etched such images on the public consciousness, a new wave of protesters are taking up the fight in inventive and surprising ways.
1.03pm GMT
Zeinab Mohammed Salih reports from the Sudanese Women Solidarity forum in Khartoum, Sudan.
On IWD, the group reaffirmed its commitment to work to stop women’s suffering in the war zones of Darfur, the Nuba mountains and Blue Nile states, and to spread peace in the country.
The group also called for the cancellation of laws that violate women’s rights in Sudan, such as the public order law, and the family law, and for an end to child marriage.
12.54pm GMT
What does equality mean to you? Broadcaster, writer and Labour peer Joan Bakewell says:
Equality means social justice for all regardless of race, gender or nationality. It also means that each human being on the planet has adequate housing and an adequate income to sustain their life. The world is nowhere near this objective, and doesn’t at the moment show much impulse towards it. It will be a long hard road.
12.47pm GMT
We’ve been exploring the data on how people use contraception around the world. Here’s a case study from Brazil
12.42pm GMT
Thanks to everyone who has shared what equality means to them so far. You can tweet us using the hashtag #equalitymeans
#equalitymeans understanding that the fight to dismantle oppression must be inclusive. #InternationalWomensDay #IWD2016
12.40pm GMT
Our colleagues on the books desk are marking IWD by asking readers to share their favourite books written by women. A Wrinkle in Time, The Shipping News, Jamaica Inn, Americanah are among the suggestions so far. Add your contribution
12.33pm GMT
The latest from the ODI #genderday event:
Shami Chakrabarti, the outgoing and outspoken director of Liberty, has just finished a sharp, thoughtful interview. She spoke passionately on policies and semantics relating to refugees and migrants (more on that in a minute), but this is what she had to say about women and rights and justice:
Having done this work for over 14 years, my view is that gender injustice is probably the greatest human rights violation on the planet. Across the world women are the group who suffer the greatest injustice. This is like an apartheid, and I don’t use this word lightly … it is global in its reach and it is millennial in its duration. I’m in my late 40s, and I’m getting frustrated. I’m impatient for change. And it’s everything: economic, political, health. I’m a believer in affirmative action and … in making that revolution happen globally.”
Chakrabarti says women are most vulnerable as migrants. “When I think what must be happening in Calais; it will be years before those stories come out. How safe is it for women in refugee camps? They are the most vulnerable. To prioritise the protection of refugees is to prioritise the protection of the most vulnerable people in the world.”
For firsthand insight into what Chakrabarti was talking about, read Nadene Ghouri’s moving report from Lesbos on women risking all to change their children’s prospects by changing their geography.
Chakrabarti had tough words for British PM David Cameron’s stance on refugees and migrants, and she blasted his use of “bunch of migrants” to describe people in the Calais Jungle.
“I hope that haunts him for the rest of his career,” she said.
Noting the rallies that have taken place to support refugees in Britain, she said politicians could underestimate people’s willingness to accept refugees, and should do more to be opinion leaders.
12.29pm GMT
What does equality mean to you? Actor Zoë Wanamaker says:
Liberty. Equality. Fraternity.
12.26pm GMT
We’ve had some great contributions to our call-out for photos of IWD events around the world. This is from Manchester, UK, where cyclists dressed as suffragettes to “highlight the gender imbalance of cycling”.
The 'suffragettes' cycled through Manchester as part of an event for International Women’s Day, organised by Sustrans and Manchester Bike Tours to highlight the gender imbalance of cycling.
The bicycle was a symbol of freedom for the suffragettes, who often attended demonstrations on bikes. Yet today’s research shows there are upto four times as many men who cycle compared to women.
Sent via GuardianWitness
By CyclingSarah
8 March 2016, 11:39
12.18pm GMT
The actor and campaigner Emma Watson has hit back at critics who have branded her a “feminazi”, saying she will not give up her campaigning work. In an interview in People magazine, the Harry Potter star and UN Women ambassador, said: “We are not supposed to talk about money, because people will think you’re ‘difficult’ or a ‘diva’. But there’s a willingness now to be like, ‘Fine. Call me a ‘diva’, call me a ‘feminazi’, call me ‘difficult’, call me a ‘First World feminist’, call me whatever you want, it’s not going to stop me from trying to do the right thing and make sure that the right thing happens.’ Because it doesn’t just affect me.”
12.09pm GMT
12.04pm GMT
Global development’s editor Lucy Lamble has been travelling around Malawi, reporting on the drought that has left around 100 million people in southern Africa, Asia and Latin America facing severe food and water shortages. Such crises can often result in thousands of children dropping out of school because families can no longer afford the fees when precious harvests fail. Girls are particularly vulnerable.
Lucy met 16-year-old Grace, who used to go to secondary school but had to withdraw after two years because her mother could not afford the fees. Here’s what Grace has to say on IWD:
“I want to be working and do a good job because I want to assist my family. I think this will be impossible. I’m very worried and I admire my friends when they are going to school. They don’t tell me anything any more because I don’t ask them … In the morning I go to the field, when we come back, we clean outside the house, we clean inside the house, we wash our plates, we cook food, we bath. That’s what I do.
To the whole world, I’d want to tell them that here we have no food we are starving and if there’s any help, we would appreciate it if some people can help us to avert our situation.
12.02pm GMT
Sam Jones reported earlier on how Valencia has controversially “feminised” some of the traffic lights in the city.
11.58am GMT
What does equality mean to you? British film director Sarah Gavron, who directed the film Suffragette, says:
Equality means access – for all women everywhere – to rights, opportunity and resources. Access to education is vital as it leads to so much. At the moment 62 million girls across the globe are denied an education.
11.51am GMT
Women in one area of Russia were given a courteous, if not slightly creepy, welcome to International Women’s Day. Last week, traffic police in Nizhny Novgorod marked the run-up to the day by pulling over female drivers to give them flowers.
Нижегородские гаишники выписывают автомобилисткам не штрафы, а букеты роз: https://t.co/OhyOGKVwi9 pic.twitter.com/YWOw5Tz0kD
11.47am GMT
What does equality mean to you? Juno Dawson, the transgender author formerly known as James, whose latest book is teen advice guide Mind your Head, says:
IWD is about recognising the leaps and bounds women are making. It feels like more women than ever are proud to call themselves feminists and there’s an increasing awareness of intersectionality: how your overlapping identities will affect your position and power in society. But it’s also a reminder that, in many ways, we haven’t achieved true parity yet. There is so much imbalance and so much to do.
11.43am GMT
Anne Perkins, leader writer at the Guardian, tells us what equality means to her:
Equality to me means ensuring that women have the same power to make choices as men – about marriage, sex and parenthood, work and childcare, education and training. In short, women can control their own lives.
11.38am GMT
11.34am GMT
Eva Cox, from the University of Technology Sydney, has been blogging at The Conversation on why feminism has failed and needs a rethink. She writes:
Our early support for increasing the proportion of women in positions of power was not driven by wanting more women sharing male privilege, but a belief that feminists could infiltrate and make the social and cultural changes we wanted. Now, the increasing numbers of women allowed to join men in positions of power and influence are mostly prepared to support the status quo, not to seriously increase gender equity.
So 41 years after International Women’s Year, Australian women are still very much the second sex, insofar as we are permitted limited share of power and resources in the public sphere, but on macho market terms.
11.31am GMT
What does equality mean to you? Génesis Luigi from Venezuela, another young leader with Women Deliver, says:
Equality means to me recognising and embracing diversity. Equality not only means that opportunities should be available to everyone; it means that everyone can have the chance to develop their potential.
11.26am GMT
Our colleagues on the Guardian Comment desk asked female readers what the biggest issues for women are where they live. Find out what they said: ‘Black women are treated as if we are invisible’.
11.23am GMT
Amid the celebrations on IWD, a story to serve as a reminder of why there is still much to be done to end violence against women. AP reports:
A 15-year-old girl has been raped and set on fire on the rooftop terrace of her family’s home in a village outside Delhi, police said.
The attack is just one of several recently reported cases of rape against women or children in India – underlining the persistence of such violence despite a public outcry three years ago that led to stronger laws to prevent sexual assault.
11.18am GMT
On IWD, what does equality mean to you? Here’s what Hayley Long, author of the young adult advice book Being A Girl, says:
For me, equality for women is about all of us being treated with fairness and respect in every aspect of our daily lives. It’s about restrictive gender stereotypes being a thing of the past. It’s about feeling secure and confident in our own skins. It’s about older women being valued too. And it’s about being able to say the word ‘period’ without mumbling.
11.13am GMT
What’s the contraceptive prevalence rate across Africa? Find our in our interactive
11.08am GMT
Meet Gift and Augustine Abu, the husband and wife team who have spent most of their married life on the road fighting female genital mutilation in south-east Nigeria. Gift says: “I held the body of a pregnant woman who died in my arms on the way to the hospital because she refused to undergo FGM during childbirth.” Gift says that was her most harrowing experience working as an anti-FGM activist in Nigeria. The mother-to-be was having complications, but the cutters wouldn’t help her give birth safely unless she allowed them to cut her. “They left her for dead when she said no, and blamed me because I tried to stop them.” Hajra Rahim went to Agwagune to meet the couple. Read more from her visit.
11.04am GMT
The Global Development Professionals Network is hosting a live chat with Lady Verma, a Conservative member of the UK’s House of Lords and a development minister, to explore ways to end violence against women and girls. Follow the live chat here
11.01am GMT
Hajra Rahim, who was recently in Agwagune, Nigeria, reports on a new campaign to ensure the country’s ban on FGM is implemented. The campaign is being spearheaded by the first lady.
The wife of the president of Nigeria and a group of the most powerful women in the country have launched a call to action to back the recent law banning female genital mutilation.
First Lady Aisha Muhammadu Buhari and the senior political lobbying group – known as the Southern Governor’s Wives Forum – say the time for talk is over. “Action not words should be our motto.”
After the inaugural meeting of the forum last week, the women agreed to make the elimination of harmful traditional practices such as FGM a priority.
“The time for talking is over … we must remain steadfast and dogged in the drive to achieve gender equality and protect the rights of women, notably discriminatory traditional practices and laws that prevent women from achieving their full potential and contributing to society. Using the platform presented to me by my position I shall continue to strive to promote the rights of women,” said Ugo Nneoma Nkechi Rochas Okorocha, the wife of the governor of Imo state.
Last month, the UNFPA and Unicef launched a joint programme on accelerate action to end FGM in Nigeria. Attendees at a conference held at the presidential villa in Abuja heard testimony on the realities of FGM from activists Gift and Abu Augustine, a husband and wife team from Cross River state who have dedicated their lives to ending FGM.
In May Nigeria took a historic step in banning FGM. According to the latest figures, 200 million girls undergo FGM globally. In Nigeria 25% of girls between the ages of 15 and 49 have been cut.
10.55am GMT
What does equality mean to you? Charlotte Edwards, captain of England women’s cricket team, says:
For me, equality is all about creating an even playing field, which allows everyone to participate and makes sure that everyone has the opportunity to fulfil their potential.
“Growing up as the only girl playing in boys’ and men’s cricket teams, it was tough at times, but the cricket landscape has totally changed over the last 10 years. Women and girls have just as many opportunities to play the game today as their brothers, dads and husbands, and the same development pathways that are in place in the men’s game are there for us too. Maybe in another 10 years’ time we will be at the stage where people don’t talk about men’s cricket, women’s cricket and disability cricket, they will simply talk about cricket.
10.50am GMT
More from Clár Ní Chonghaile at the #genderday event at the ODI in London:
The event is now tackling the global childcare crisis, looking at an ODI report this month that warns of a “hidden crisis in childcare”.
There are some pretty shocking stats in that report, which warns that millions of children are without the support they need, with damaging consequences for their future, and severe impact on three generations of women – mothers, grandmothers and daughters. The report found that many women feel trapped between the need to provide minute-by-minute supervision of young children and the need to earn enough money to pay for that. That sounds about right.
10.46am GMT
A march at The Hague showing solidarity with the girls kidnapped by Boko Haram in Chibok, Nigeria, is coming to a close. The rally was organised by International Alert, Unicef and the Dutch foreign ministry.
At @UnicefNL headquarters where our march draws to a close #FutureForOurGirls #IWD2016 pic.twitter.com/9H7y47cb1L
10.40am GMT
Almost a year after the Daily Mail infamously described the Scottish first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, as “the most dangerous woman in Britain”, the University of Edinburgh is using the label as a way to explore the idea of dangerous women and to highlight women’s stories, perspectives and experiences.
10.36am GMT
What does equality mean to you? Olaoluwa Abagun, a young leader in Nigeria with the organisation Women Deliver, says:
In 2014, I shared a picture with some of the Nigerian adolescent girls I work with of a female civil engineer in her bright orange overalls, deeply engrossed in a building project with her all-male-but-one team. The girls cringed. They all thought it was a ‘weird’ place for a young woman to be. To my mind, equality means that this table of ‘weirdness’ is flipped, and all members of my society cringe instead at the absence of women across several socioeconomic spaces.
10.33am GMT
10.32am GMT
What does equality mean to you? Here’s what Sarah Brown, campaigner and president of the children’s charity Theirworld (also married to Britain’s former prime minister Gordon Brown), told us:
Equality means girls having the same chances and opportunities as boys. People still say ‘that’s not for girls’ and that’s why Theirworld has launched the #RewritingTheCode campaign for International Women’s Day. We want all women to speak out against the embedded values that hold us all back.
10.23am GMT
Bollywood actor and UN Women regional ambassador Farhan Akhtar tells us what IWD means to him:
Women’s Day was initiated as a day to focus on pressing issues that affect half the population of our world. Although each day is an opportunity to deal with these issues, we should use this dedicated day as a milestone to measure how much progress has been made since the previous year. For me, it is an honour to be part of this global movement and to stand shoulder to shoulder with fiercely committed women and men.
10.20am GMT
As usual, there’s chatter online regarding the apparent lack of days dedicated to men. Ricky Gervais points out there is at least one International Men’s Day.
It's #InternationalWomensDay. Don't embarrass yourself by asking why there's no international men's day. There is. Nov 19th. You're welcome.
10.17am GMT
We’d like to know what equality means to you. Share your thoughts in the comment thread, email us at development@theguardian.com or tweet using the hashtag #equalitymeans
#equalitymeans that your chance of being safe and successful in this world is not determined by your gender or where you're born. #IWD2016
10.11am GMT
Google is showcasing IWD on its homepage today with a video featuring women and girls around the world, including anthropologist Jane Goodall and Nobel prize winner Malala Yousafzai. Google visited 13 cities and asked 337 girls and women to complete the sentence “One day I will …”
10.09am GMT
Donatella Cinelli Colombini is something of a vineyard revolutionary, having opened Italy’s first winery run solely by women. When she inherited the estate in Tuscany from her mother in the late 1990s, she went in search of staff at Siena’s œnology school. “They told me that I’d need to wait months to have a good student. But when I said I wanted a female student, they said there were lots, because no winery wanted them,” Cinelli Colombini says. “No one ever thought that good wine could be made by women.”
10.05am GMT
On IWD, what does equality mean to you? BBC Radio 1 presenter Annie Nightingale (the station’s first female DJ) says:
Equality for me means being offered the same avenues of opportunity to achieve the most fulfilment, whether it’s to become a disc jockey or to become an astrophysicist.
Equality to me means getting equal pay.
9.59am GMT
A poll commissioned for the London Southbank Centre’s Women of the World (Wow) festival reveals some startling statistics about women and work.
9.55am GMT
9.51am GMT
Global development’s Clár Ní Chonghaile is covering the Overseas Development Institute’s IWD day event in London. Here’s her first report:
The #genderday event is well under way, with former Danish prime minister and new CEO of Save the Children International Helle Thorning-Schmidt making the keynote address of a day devoted to examining the global barriers to women and girls achieving their potential.
Thorning-Schmidt says: “As we speak, we have a situation where every 10 minutes somewhere in the world, an adolescent girl dies as a result of violence … Complications during childbirth are the second highest cause of death for adolescent girls … If we want to see a planet that is truly 50:50 by 2030, we need to start changing these numbers, stories and these girls’ futures.”
9.44am GMT
The charity Malaika was set up by Noella Coursaris Musunka, a model and activist who was born in Lubumbashi, in DRC. The library she and Eve are opening today is the only one within a 100-mile radius. The library is part of a school built by Noella’s charity in 2011 and will be stocked with e-books and print books in English and French, as well as tablets and an interactive whiteboard.
Equality to me means having access to opportunity. We can all agree that girls should be able to read and write at the same level as boys, but the way to achieve this is by ensuring that girls have access to education. Gender inequality pervades Congolese society and is compounded by extreme poverty. When families can afford to send their children to school, they choose the boys, while the girls work on domestic tasks. This is why the Malaika school offers a free and high quality education to 230 girls. Any attempt to bring about equality must take into account this intersection between gender and economics.
9.36am GMT
The rapper Eve is in Kalebuka, a village near Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, this week, opening the village’s first library with the charity Malaika.
“On IWD, what does equality mean?” Here’s what Eve says:
To me, equality starts with education. Education is the key to self-esteem and opens up a world of choices. I was very lucky to be born to a strong, independent woman who taught me that nothing was impossible. Not going to school wasn’t an option, I even took it for granted in some ways, as it was just a given. But in many parts of the world, not every little girl has access to an education.
When I was young, and a lot more fearless, I thought I could take on the world in whatever way I wanted. I am forever thankful to have been brought up in that way, as it made me into the person I am today. As I got older and became more aware of the world around me, I began to understand how difficult it is for women in other parts of the world. Equality to me means that every little girl will be able to have the gift of education in the years to come.
9.32am GMT
It’s coming to the end of IWD in Australia. In Melbourne, campaigners chained themselves to the gates of prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s office calling for equal pay for early childhood educators. Van Badham’s thoughts on the gender pay gap in Australia are worth a read.
I marking IWD by joining the BigSteps - Equal Pay for Early Childhood Educators protest, -- chained outside PM Malcolm Turnbull's Melbourne office. This is in memory of Zelda D'Aprano's protest in 1979. Zelda chained herself to a Commonwealth building to demand equal pay for mens and womens work. I am hoping that another 50 years doesn't go by with unequal pay , especially in the Early Childhood Sector where we are paid about 30 % less than other education sectors.
Sent via GuardianWitness
By Helen Coffey
8 March 2016, 4:27
9.27am GMT
To mark IWD in the Netherlands, International Alert, Unicef and the Dutch foreign ministry are organising a march at The Hague this morning to show solidarity with the girls kidnapped by Boko Haram in Chibok, Nigeria, in 2014. They’re also calling for more support for the women and girls who have been released or have escaped from captivity, using the hashtag #FutureforOurGirls.
Last month, International Alert and Unicef published a report that revealed how women and girls who escape to return home are often viewed with mistrust and suspicion.
9.22am GMT
We want to know how you’re marking IWD 2016. Share your stories, images and videos on Guardian Witness.
And we also want your answer to the question: “On IWD, what does equality mean to you?” You can post your answers in the comment thread, tweet using the hashtag #equalitymeans, or email development@theguardian.com.
9.16am GMT
“On IWD, what does equality mean to you?” – here’s what Sophie Walker, leader of the Women’s Equality party and its London mayoral candidate, says:
Equality to me means freedom, and a society that is built on the six objectives that the Women’s Equality party is striving to achieve: an end to violence against women and girls; equal representation in all walks of life; equal opportunities to thrive and be paid equally for the work that we do; sharing equally the joys and responsibilities of caregiving; seeing our lives reflected equally and accurately in the media that surrounds us; and giving our children an equal education so that the next generation leads lives free from gendered expectations.
9.08am GMT
Global development correspondent Sam Jones reports on the controversial move by Valencia councillors to celebrate IWD.
Spain’s third city, Valencia, is celebrating International Women’s Day by installing 20 special traffic lights in which the green and red men are joined, or replaced, by green and red women – in skirts.
While the city council acknowledges that no single figure or symbol can properly represent everyone, it said: “There’s no doubt that the pedestrian figure that currently appears on traffic lights is masculine; what we want to see on our streets is a diverse and conciliatory language through their traffic signals.”
9.00am GMT
“On IWD, what does equality mean to you?” – here’s what the actor Greta Scacchi says:
Equality would mean women being valued as much as men value themselves and no longer having the need for IWD.
8.56am GMT
Where has the highest rate of male sterilisation? How many people in sub-Saharan Africa are on the pill? To mark IWD, the Global development team has taken all the lovely data from the population division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs and put the figures in an interactive. You can scroll through the graphs to see which countries have the highest rates of contraceptive use, and those that don’t use much at all, exploring mini case studies from around the world.
You can also find out which methods of contraception are the most popular from female sterilisation to withdrawal.
8.50am GMT
“On IWD, what does equality mean to you?” – Here’s what the award-winning Kenya filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu told us equality meant to her:
We still live in a time where we battle for sameness. In my work, the view is still largely slanted and there are few female film directors whose work is recognised internationally. Women filmmakers have become a genre. Equality means equal attention, care and facilitation for women’s work in every industry. And equal bucks as well!
8.46am GMT
Good morning, or evening, depending where you are in the world. Welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of International Women’s Day.
We are going to be covering how this annual celebration of women is being marked around the world. This is the first IWD since 193 governments agreed to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls by 2030 in the new set of global goals (if you want to know more, take a look at our interactive explainer).
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