International Women’s Day is celebrated worldwide on the 8th of March every year. History has it that in 1908, against the backdrop of terrible work conditions and exploitation, fifteen thousand women took to the streets in US state of New York, protesting for shorter hours, better pay and voting rights.

The next year, the Socialist Party of America announced a National Women’s Day to honour the strikers and, in 1910, it went global. The first International Women’s Day was held in 1911. The United Nations adopted the International Women’s Day on March 8, 1975.

Presently, reports say 87,000 women are killed every year, just because they are women. One hundred and eleven countries have no repercussion for husbands who rape their wives. Two point seven billion women are restricted from having choice jobs as men. Forty-five countries do not have specific law against domestic violence and thirty-five per cent of women globally have experienced sexual and physical violence.

So the International Women’s Day is a day to join voices across the world to demand for equal rights, insisting that women’s rights are human rights.

While circumstances are different this year because of COVID-19, it is still a day to celebrate women around the world, their achievements, raise awareness about women’s equality and more.

The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day, “Choose To Challenge”, is very apt. More than one hundred years ago, the first march was about ending harmful work place conditions, equal rights, equal pay and an end to exploitation. Sadly, today, the aims are still relevant because the rights of women are not yet secure.

Sometimes, once laws and rights are established, they are ignored. For instance, in Nigeria, despite domestic violence laws like the Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) law, public awareness, and access to legal protection, Nigerian women are still facing gender violence on daily basis.

It is a disheartening that during the COVID-19 lockdown, women and girls were raped at alarming rate. In most cases, the perpetrators were apprehended but were let off the hook within days of their arrests without them facing the full wrath of the law. This is not good as it encourages more people to engage in such crime, knowing full well that they will go scot free.

In some parts of the country, widows still experience terrible treatment from their in-laws. Some of them are forced to drink water used in bathing the corpses of their husbands, especially when they are suspected of having a hand in the death of the man.

Many women are left without inheritance, especially if they do not bear male children. Some might have male children but yet their in-laws dispossessed them of their late husbands’ property because of their vulnerability.

 Women reproductive health rights have not received the attention it deserves. In this part of the world, women are to be seen not heard. That is the reason why women, on the occasion of the International Women’s Day, must keep speaking out until they are given equal rights as their male counterparts.

However, women of colour, race, ethnicity, religion and culture have been breaking barriers in several spheres of life at local, national and international levels. Of a notable mention is the new Director-General of World Trade Organization, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who is the first African and first woman to hold such position in the world. Mrs Kamala Harris is the first female Vice President of America and many more.

International Women’s Day is not just about improving the lives of women; it is about dismantling all damaging gender stereotypes. It is also a time for everyone, irrespective of sex, to celebrate the progress women have made towards equality and remember grounds yet unbroken.

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