100th Anniversary of International Women’s Day!

Tomorrow, 8 March, marks the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day (IWD). It is also 16 days before the ICEM’s largest Women’s Conference ever, when 160 participants from 40 countries convene in Sevilla, Spain.

(There is still time to register and attend the ICEM Women’s Conference from 23-25 March. Please refer to the invitation, registration form, and tentative agenda. The cover art for this article is courtesy of ICEM German affiliate IGBCE, which has as theme this year, “Lay Tomorrow’s Foundation Today.”)

Some ICEM affiliates have already held IWD events. In Thailand, ICEM-affiliated unions joined other civil society groups in a 6-7 March symposium at Thammasat University in Bangkok. A key point made was that hundreds of thousands of Thai women work longer than eight hours per day at low wages and without social benefits.

ICEM Thai Project Coordinator Aranya Pakapath and GOPTU’s Araya Kaewpradap

Araya Kaewpradap of the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation Labour Union (GOPTU) said at the symposium that the majority of Thai women are employed under short-term, fixed contracts, although in reality most have worked 20 or more years in such jobs. She said women are discriminated from entitlements, upward wage adjustments, social benefits, maternity protection, and they do not have access to the national social security scheme.

The importance of Thailand ratifying ILO Convention 183 on Maternity Protection was also brought out at the symposium, which was televised throughout the country. Symposium participants and thousands of others will march tomorrow from Democracy Monument to the Government House in Bangkok to mark IWD.

IWD Thai Symposium at Thammasat University

In Spain, ICEM’s two affiliated trade union federations, UGT and CC.OO, which will jointly co-host the Sevilla Women’s Conference in two weeks time, issued a common IWD statement that is critical of Spain’s government for labour revisions, “which, far from creating employment, is contributing once again to the dismantling of too few labour guarantees.”

The statement also said: “The elimination of the Ministry of Equality (now part of the Ministry of Health) means a step backwards on gender polices and a violation of the commitments of equality made at European and international levels that instruct governments to treat equality themes at high levels of responsibility.”

  

Across the world, a great number of “bridge walks” will occur tomorrow and throughout the rest of the week. The bridge walks, developed last year by programme directors for Women International in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), symbolise awareness toward women facing crises in war-torn countries.

That is sadly reflected now in many countries of North Africa and the Middle East. And it was also on vivid display on Saturday, 5 March, when Israeli border police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at Palestinian women, who were holding an IWD manifestation at the Qalandiya border crossing north of Jerusalem.

IWD is meant to be a global day to celebrate the economic, political, and social achievements of women past, present, and future, regardless of national, ethnic, or social divisions. In 1910, Clara Zetkin of Germany’s Social Democratic Party tabled the idea at the Second International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen, Denmark.

A year later, on 19 March, IWD was officially recognised by Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland. In 1913, IWD was moved to 8 March. Today, it is an official holiday in 25 countries: Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Georgia, Guinea-Bissau, Kazakhstan, Kyrgzstan, Laos, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Nepal, Russia, Tajikistan, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, and Zambia.

In the US, March is Women’s History Month and it will take on special significance this month. It was in New York City, on 25 March 1911, when 146 mostly girls and young women, ages 14 to 23, perished in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. The seamstresses were unable to escape the burning building after owners had locked stairwells and exits. US trade unions will commemorate this horrible affront to working women in several different events across the month of March.

ICEM affiliates are encouraged to report their IWD actions and activities to Carol Bruce, ICEM’s Women’s Officer.