Today is International Women's Day, an event celebrated for the first time on March 19, 1911:
More than one million women and men attended IWD rallies campaigning for women's rights to work, vote, be trained, to hold public office and end discrimination.
However less than a week later on 25 March, the tragic 'Triangle Fire' in New York City took the lives of more than 140 working women, most of them Italian and Jewish immigrants. This disastrous event drew significant attention to working conditions and labour legislation in the United States that became a focus of subsequent International Women's Day events.
International Women's Day is widely-celebrated around the world, and a national holiday in a number of countries, including Bulgaria, China, Russia, Ukraine, and Vietnam. But women's rights are still hard-won in many places, and I thought I'd share this article on the challenges and hopes of female candidates in Iraq's parliamentary elections. Jenan Mubarak, on the right in the photo above, campaigning in Baghdad, is one of those candidates:
Ms. Mubark manages a construction company and runs the Iraqi Center for Women's Rehabilitation and Employment, a nongovernmental organization that she said gave her a base of support, both male and female. In her walkup office in central Baghdad, she described her agenda in language that has become familiar to political campaigns around the world. "This," she said, "is the first step for change in our country."
Photo credit: AP Photo/ Karim Kadim
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