International Women's Day: are we doing enough?

Kat Senior gives her thoughts on the progress of women's rights and argues that we need to keep up the good work.

''Of the 1.3 billion people worldwide who suffer from extreme poverty, 70 per cent are women or girls.'' Shanthi Shivasanan, who works for Oxfam in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka, talking with Subagini, who lost both her parents in the Tsunami waves and is being cared for by her older sister. Photo: Howard Davies/Oxfam Two girls at the We Can campaign's Youth Festival, held in Delhi in November 2004. The flag reads 'Equal relationships are violence free'. Credit: Oxfam

"Women are in double jeopardy. Today, what unites women internationally - transcending class, race, culture, religion, nationality and ethnic origin - is their vulnerability to the denial and violation of their fundamental human rights, and their dedicated efforts to claim those rights."
Amnesty International - Human Rights are Women's Rights

Wednesday 8 March is International Women's Day. Throughout many countries, women will be able to celebrate the achievements and breakthoughs in women's rights, and to remember the sacrifices it took from so many other women to get this far. In Britain, for example, there have been many significant points in history, including the efforts of Emmeline Pankhurst and the Suffragettes, as well as modern feminism, that have advanced women's rights to the standard they are today.

In Britain I think that some of the old traditions that depended on the division between the status of men and women have been lost or confused. An example of this is men opening doors or giving up seats for women in Britain - it's not expected, but it's still considered polite.

However, in other countries, women's rights seem to be much more clear-cut, negatively so. Of the 1.3 billion people worldwide who suffer from extreme poverty, 70 per cent are women or girls. Gender inequality and discrimination is a severe and ongoing problem that effects the ability of women in many countries to have even a decent quality of life. It's compounded by gender-based violence, inability to get basic eduation or even gender bias at a national level.

Last week I went shopping and bought a copy of the Big Issue, and as I read it a leaflet slipped out from Amnesty. It was asking for support to petition for the release of a woman in Eritrea who had been imprisoned in a shipping container simply for refusing to sign a document that effectively "forced her to abandon her faith" (Amnesty). I was shocked, and yet it is just one example of the violence and violation of women's rights that are common in so many places.

Thanks to new schemes, quality of life for some women in some places is improving, but there are still so many countries where this is not the case. While International Women's Day should be taken as an opportunity to commemorate all the achievements towards women's rights, it should also, in my opinion, be seen as an opportunity to consider what can be done to help women in other countries where human rights are seriously gender biased. Having a good quality of life, a good education, a job to provide for your family and a life without violence are not gifts. They are rights that every human should have, and gender should not be a factor.