I returned a few minutes ago from a brief but effective event at UNESCAP in Bangkok, celebrating 100 years of International Women’s Day.
It was effective because it featured several young women telling their personal stories.
Each, in some cases after struggling through hardships and handicaps hard to imagine for an average middle class person in a developed country, has risen above her challenges to become an agent of change.
Take Amy, now 21. At the age of 14 this Burmese migrant worker slogged day and night far from home and her mother, in an orchard in Thailand’s Chantaburi province. On top of it all she cleaned cars. Her working hours: 5am to 2am.
When telling her story, the young woman’s voice faltered and her eyes welled with tears at the memory of how the employer she had been sold to, had whipped her with a belt simply because he did not like Burmese nationals.
Or take Yoshimi Horiuchi, 28, a Japanese who turned blind in her teens. She now runs Always Reading Caravan (http://www.alwaysreadingcaravan.org/?team.htm#cont) which provides mobile library services to children and adults - both with and without disabilities - in rural Thailand.
UNESCAP Executive Secretary Dr Noeleen Heyzer outlined the beginnings of the slow, stuttering but steady emancipation of women that began some 100 years ago, and which remains a work in progress. As she outlined the many gains there have been since, she added ‘’We need to remember and to celebrate, but we also need to accelerate change.’
Speaking of the courage of the young women who had related their stories, and the challenges that remain, she said "We need to make sure we harness the courage, the spirit, to accelerate change and move human society forward.’’
There remains an array of challenges. Often, even in countries where women have risen to the very top, they are notable exceptions as societies continue to discriminate against women. The girl child in many societies, is still forced to drop out of school early. While laws against domestic violence and rape have been promulgated across the world, and even as women are the engines of livelihood and entire national economies, they often remain second class citizens in their own homes.
Those who want to read more about the status of women across the globe, may want to look up this website which gathers an array of links to interesting articles and commentaries on International Women’s Day - http://trustlawlive.trust.org/Event/International_Womens_Day_2011
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