This year, we! documents some of the various ways womens worldwide organisations observed IWD: from an exhibit of images of women in decision-making positions through the eyes of Fijian young women to a global campaign for 100,000 signatures protesting the war in Iraq; from a silent vigil to protest abuse of Iranian womens rights and a march protesting a repressive government in the Philippines to the celebration of a landmark case settlement on womens right to abortion in Mexico.
The Fiji Womens Rights Movement (FWRM) celebrated International Womens Day with a photography exhibit on young womens visions of Women in Decision-Making at Alliance Franaise. The show highlights Alisi Faivakibaus Crossroads: The Next Step Counts, a series of three photographs of a partially blind woman attempting to cross a busy Suva street; and Anjula Devis Tabu Soro: Live and Never Say Die, a portrait of two homeless women who live in the doorway of a restaurant in Suva.
The theme, women in decision-making, wasnt about professional women or women politiciansit was about everyday women: mothers, tailors, grandmothers, market-vendors, fisherwomen and the homeless, said FWRM Executive Director Virisila Buadromo. It drove home the idea that it doesnt matter how big or small the decision, it is about who is making the decision and how this impacts on them and their families.
Meanwhile, CodePINK Fiji and Womens Action for Change (WAC), in an open letter to President George Bush, called for an immediate end to the US occupation of Iraq, insisting that war and armed conflicts impact most on civilian women and children. WAC also delivered 30 Pink Peace awards to women and men, saying that active peace building and nonviolence is the only way to lasting peace and human security.
Sources:
Fiji Womens Rights Movement. (2006, March 10). Picture this! Launch a big success
WAC. (2006, March 6). 2006 International Womens Day messageWAC
INDIA: Women campaign for implementation of domestic violence law
A coalition of organisations in Bangalore chose to highlight the fact that five months after a legislation passed to deal with domestic violence (the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005)thanks to the persistent lobbying of womens groups and progressive lawyersit cannot be implemented because the necessary infrastructure is not yet in place.
Meanwhile, an organisation in Mumbai put up a photo exhibition along four city bus routes depicting the history of womens activism in India from 1931 onwards.
Source:
International Womens Day: Cutting through the crap. (n.d.) InfoChange News & Features. Retrieved March 10, 2006 from<http://southasia.oneworld.net/article/view/128932/1/?PrintableVersion=enabled>
IRAN: Womens day turns bloody
An International Womens Day gathering of some 1,000 womens rights activists and human rights defenders in Tehran ended in violence.
Human Rights Watch reported that ten minutes into the silent vigil, security forces declared the assembly illegal and asked the women, who were carrying signs condemning war and discrimination against women, to disperse. When the women carried on with their program, police, security officers, and plain-clothes militia dumped garbage cans on their heads and beat them with batons. Journalists who had photographed the event were jailed, and released only after confiscation of their films.
Womens rights groups have been repeatedly denied requests to hold public gatherings. As a result of this latest assault, human rights activists believe that interrogations, harassments, including closure and arrests, will increase.
Sources:
Iran: Police attack Womens Day celebration. (2006, March 9). Retrieved from Human Rights Watch <http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/03/09/iran12832.htm>
Peaceful Iranian womens rights gathering on 8th March, ends in violence. (2006, March 9)
MEXICO: Landmark abortion case settled
The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) celebrated a friendly settlement with the Mexican government that could help rape victims in that country. CRR brought the suit before the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights on behalf of Paulina, who was raped at 13 and denied an abortion because of the personal and religious beliefs of officials in her home state of Baja California. The Mexican government agreed to pay Paulina USD33,000 and provide health care and education compensation to her and her son. It also promised regulatory guidelines for officials treatment of rape victims.
This is the most important legal victory for women in Mexico in a decade, said CRRs Luisa Cabal. It is the first time a Latin American government has acknowledged that access to legal abortion is a human right, and now the Mexican government is required to ensure that this right is not violated.
The case is significant given reports that Mexican authorities routinely deny rape victims access to safe, legal abortions. New York-based Human Rights Watch revealed that although all of Mexicos 31 states allow abortion to women who have been raped or whose health is in danger because of their pregnancy, no clear guidelines exist to guarantee access to safe abortions in 29 states.
"Again and again, we are finding the same cases of women going through the trauma of being raped and then going through another trauma at the hands of government officials," the study's author Marianne Mollmann told the Associated Press. The report is based on interviews with more than 100 lawyers, doctors, officials, and rape victims across Mexico.
Sources:
Cevallos, D. (2006, Mar 7). Mexican rape victims denied right to abortion. Retrieved March 10, 2006 <http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32409>Paul, A.M. (2006, March 11). Wal-Mart Stocks EC; Mexico Denies Abortion Access. Cheers and jeers of the week: Womens e-News. Email from Women's eNews <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Paulina Ramrez v. Mexico. (n.d.). Retrieved on March 10, 2006 from Center for Reproductive Rights <http://www.crlp.org/crt_ab_access_legal.html#mexico>
PHILIPPINES: Women march to oust a macho president
Some 8,000 women from different sectors and political persuasions marched in Manilas business district protesting Gloria Macapagal Arroyos repressive government and calling for her ouster. They denounced her administrations continued intimidation, harassment and curtailment of human rights and press freedom despite the lifting of her proclamation of a state of national emergency.
Women have found no support from Arroyo, a woman president, says the Womens March statement. It adds: Her 10-point development agenda makes no mention of any gender concern. She has denied official support for full reproductive health and family planning services, thus putting at risk womens health and lives. The National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women that is mandated to ensure gender responsive policies has one of the smallest budgets in the bureaucracy.
Source:
Martsa ng Kababaihan. (2006, March 8). Unity statement: A womans place is in the struggle, womens groups statement on the occasion of International Womens Day (IWD) 2006.SOUTH AFRICA: Activists bewail aids and rights abuses
The rising number of women living with HIV/AIDS globally is directly related to the abuse of women's rights, South African activists said as they commemorated International Womens Day.
"In addition to a biological make-up which leaves women and young girls more prone to HIV infection than men, continued discrimination and lack of access to rights also exacerbate the situation," Carrie Shelver of People Opposing Women Abuse (POWA) told PlusNews.
Shelver noted that most young women experienced their first sexual encounter as the result of sexual violence or coercion, leaving women with little room for negotiating safe sex. POWA is a Johannesburg-based NGO supporting women who experience domestic violence, sexual harassment and rape.
POWA said that the South African government has pledged since 2002 to provide rape survivors with post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), which reduces the risk of contracting HIV if administered soon after the assault. However, to get PEP, the crime needs to be reported to the police, something which women often refrain from doing because of the stigma attached to it.
Human Rights Watch likewise noted in a 2004 report that "there is a deadly disconnect" between the reality for rape survivors and the government's intention to provide PEP. Factors like poor police response to rape cases, or rape survivors being turned away, have further impeded access to PEP. For most survivors, ironically, the AIDS pandemic had turned sexual assault into a possible death sentence.
Source:South Africa: Activists lament AIDS and rights abuses on International Women's Day. (2006, March 9). Retrieved on March 10, 2006
from <http://allafrica.com/stories/200603090002.html>
USA AND WORLDWIDE: Women petition Bush to end Iraq war
In Washington DC, hundreds of women in pinkled by a courageous group of Iraqi womengathered at the Iraqi Embassy and marched to the White House to turn in petitions against the US war in Iraq.
The Iraqi women who represented Shias, Sunnis and Kurds, as well as religious and secular women, shared their experiences living in a nation at war, and passionately aired their desire to end the occupation. They held George Bush and the US government accountable for the chaos, the killing, the violence that is engulfing their nation. While Congress was considering the Bush administration's request for USD 70 billion more for war, American and Iraqi women were walking arm-in-arm, chanting "Money for health care and education, not for war and occupation," a CODEPINK release said.
CODEPINK: Women for Peace, a California-based activist group, organised the Women Say No to War global campaign which gathered more than 100,000 signatures and delivered them to the White House and US embassies around the world on March 8.
Source:Congratulations, we did it! 100,000 signatures to White House. (2006, March 9). Email from CODEPINK <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
The 
we!
WiA 
Isis Resource Center holds one of the largest feminist collections of materials in the Global South. With 40 years of publication experience, Isis holds a vast collection.