A hundred years ago today, women across the world took an historic step on the long road to equality. The first ever International Women's Day was called to draw attention to the unacceptable and often dangerous working conditions that so many women faced worldwide. Although the occasion was celebrated in only a handful of countries,it brought over one million women out onto the streets,demanding not just better conditions at work but aLSo the right to vote, to hold office and to be equal partners with men.

One hundred years ago,only two countries allowed women to vote. Today, that right is virtually universal and women have now been elected to lead Governments in every continent. Women,too,hold leading positions in professions from which they were once banned. Far more recently than a century ago,the police,courts and neighbors still saw violence in the home as a purely private matter. Today two-thirds of countries have specific laws that penalize domestic violence and the United Nations Security Council now recognizes sexual violence as a deliberate tactic of war.

 

But despite this progress over the last century,the hopes of equality expressed on that first International Women's Day are a long way from being realized. Almost two out of three illiterate adults are women. Girls are still less likely to be in SChool than boys. Every 90 seconds of every day,a woman dies in pregnancy or due to childbirth-related complications despite us having the knowledge and resources to make birth safe.

Across the world,women continue to earn less than men for the same work. In many countries,too, they have unequal access to land and inheritance rights. And despite high-profile advances,women still make up only 19 per cent of legiSLatures,8% of peace negotiators,and only 28 women are heads of state or government.