Consider the plight of school going children hailing from the feminine gender – are they free to mingle with other students, especially Boys, of the school and spend the day learning, playing, chatting, and rejoicing which they earnestly deserve? An honest answer for this mind-boggling question is an emphatic “No”.  Because schools are the miniatures of our society, where violence – sexual, physical and psychological – are rampant.  More so in the so called sophisticated societies of the Western world, where people adopt more automated life-styles, borne out of the scientific inventions and technological excellence.

In the under developed countries, the situation is still worse. Poverty and illiteracy are the backbones in these countries, to invite diseases because of unhygienic conditions prevailing in the whole community including schools.  Girl students are denied education to take care of the other children at home; sexual harassments threaten them everywhere, whether they are at home or at schools. While it is bragged that education is human right, it is denied to these poor kids for no fault of theirs.

The violence in such communities first target female children, to molest them mercilessly and the result is sexual diseases like HIV, unwanted pregnancies and mental depression. Ethnic discriminations create violence in large scales, where people take refuge in camps and here also the female members of the society, particularly kids and teenagers, face untold miseries in the hands of males for all sorts of abuses.

Let us wake up and do something about this on the eve of International Women’s Day 2009.

The International Women’s Day is celebrated the world over on 8th March.  The liberation of women from the cores of household work was not easy and there were many sacrifices and untiring struggle going over centuries to achieve this. Here are some amazing facts behind the International Women’s Day:

* British Parliament saw a voice raised by MP John Stuart Mill in 1869 for the very first time that women should be given a right to vote.

* But it was New Zealand that became the foremost country of all, which gave the right to women to vote on September 19, 1893. Till then this freedom was a dream for women of other countries, who were awakened to fight.

* The struggle went on and a woman by name Clara Zetkin (a German leader of the “Women’s Office” of the Social Democratic Party) mooted and tabled the idea of an “International Women’s Day in 1910, when the second International Conference of Working Women took place in Copenhagen.

* This was accepted unanimously, by the Conference where nearly 100 women from 17 countries took part and celebrations of a “Women’s Day” gained momentum.

* The date was finalized as 19th March (not March 8th as it is now) to commemorate the Prussian Revolution in 1848 when the King made many promises, including voting rights to women (but not kept up by him, exactly like the Politicians everywhere!)

* Following the tremendous success of International Women’s Day in 1911 when all over the world meetings, demonstrations and processions were held (in one of them in UK some 30,000 women participated) the voice was strengthened for women’s liberation.

* In 1913 the date was changed from 19th March to 8th March for IWD

* In 1975 the United Nations gave official recognition to International Women’s Day, which many Asian, American, European, Australian and African countries are following todate.

Women of today’s world are enjoying the fruit of the struggles their ancestors won.