International Women’s Day

The global UN Women theme for International Women’s Day (IWD) 2021 is “Women in Leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world”. This theme celebrates the tremendous efforts by women and girls around the world in shaping a more equal future.

The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the disproportionate burdens that women carry and the centrality of women’s contributions to decision making.

Across the globe, women are leading organisations and institutions carrying out effective and inclusive COVID-19 responses, from the highest levels of decision-making through to frontline service delivery. Women bring different experiences, perspectives and skills to the table, and make invaluable contributions to decisions, policies and laws that work better for all.

Goal 5 of the Sustainable Development Goals calls on UN Member States to “achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”. However the Sustainable Development Goals Report 2020 indicates that full gender equality remains unfulfilled. This leaves women vulnerable to being trafficked and exploited. The UNODC Global Trafficking in Persons Report 2020 revealed that for every 10 victims of trafficking detected globally, five are adult women and two are girls. Where forced labour revolves around domestic servitude, women and girls predominate.

Gender equality is a human rights issue. On this International Women’s Day join ACRATH and the Global Community in raising awareness about the need to work towards gender equality and the empowerment of women.