The United Nations’ theme for this year’s Women’s Day celebration is ‘For All Women and Girls: Rights, Equality, Empowerment.” This year also marks the thirtieth anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, for women’s and girls’ rights. Since 1995, the call for gender equality in society has increased and many voices from various parts of the world have joined in this call.
Sr Oluwakemi Akinleye fsp – Lagos.
A brave mother
Asabeh is a thirty-year old woman living in Lagos. She is a mother of four and works as a cleaner in a restaurant. She receives a very low salary but she gets up every day to go to work. She needs the little she receives to feed her children. She is not willing to allow the harsh economic reality of the country crush her effort in taking care of her children.
Get involved for all women and girls
The celebration of the women in society on 8 March annually comes as a reminder that every woman is a gift to be treasured and empowered. According to the United Nations, this year’s theme “calls for action that can unlock equal rights, power and opportunities for all.” No woman or girl is to be left behind because she is female. “Central to this vision is empowering the next generation—youth, particularly young women and adolescent girls—as catalysts for lasting change.”
Celebrating the African woman
The African woman is beautiful, elegant, intelligent, strong, resilient and hardworking, yet she is also very vulnerable. She bears the brunt of being a mother with meagre means to feed her children, she is a female child that often lacks opportunity in life and in some cultures, she cannot inherit property because she is female. She is sometimes misjudged for her failures but she does not easily allow her brokenness to define her.
Let this day continue to be for women a day of love, care, forgiveness and healing for women and girls on every continent of the world.
