News Desk
ISLAMABAD: Women hit the streets across the world on Wednesday to mark International Women’s Day and stand up for coming under increasing attack rights.
With the Afghan Taliban government’s banning women from universities, Iran’s repression of the protests against Mahsa Amini’s killing, new US restrictions on abortion rights, and the Ukraine war’s worse effects on women, there are many causes to protest.
But as thousands of women raised banners and marched through streets across the world, others were forced to keep a low profile as governments sought to block the demonstrations.
In Afghanistan, which the United Nations has denounced as the “most repressive country in the world” for females’ rights, AFP saw around twenty women holding a rare protest in Kabul.
Thousands also rallied across Pakistan, despite efforts by the authorities to stop them on the grounds of their controversial slogans addressing subjects such as sexual harassment, divorce, and menstruation.
Schoolteacher Rabail Akhtar, who joined nearly 2,000 protesters in Lahore, said she was marching to “demand the safety and security that women are not afforded in this society and country.”
A fellow demonstrator Soheila Afzal asked why the authorities are afraid of women calling for their rights.
Rallies also took place in Indonesia and Thailand, but march organizers in Hong Kong said they had called off a rare and authorized protest after the police continuously summoned activists.
Rallies across the world
Elsewhere, the focus was on highlighting gender violence, especially in Turkey, where another 3 women were killed on Wednesday, local media said.
The Stop Feminicides platform said that their deaths raise to 328, the tally killed in Turkey since last year’s Women’s Day.
In Barcelona, several thousand women students marched through the city center, many wearing purple and raising banners reading: “We’re brave, and we want to be free” and “Feminism means fighting.”
