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Alexandra Topping (now) and Tobi Thomas (earlier)

International Women’s Day 2023: women defy protest ban with march in Pakistan – as it happened

International Women Day (Event)
Women take part in protest march in Lahore, Pakistan, on International Women’s Day despite ban on demonstrations.
Women take part in protest march in Lahore, Pakistan, on International Women’s Day despite ban on demonstrations. Photograph: Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images

I’m wrapping up the International Women’s Day blog from London for today, but you can keep up with all of our coverage of IWD on our dedicated page which will continue to be updated as the day continues around the world.

Thank you for your company!

Live from New York! It’s ….The UN observance of International Women’s Day!

UN Women – who set this year’s theme as “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality” – have warned that the persistent gender gap in digital access holds women back.

It sounds slightly wonky, but it has serious implications.

A global analysis of 133 AI systems across industries found that 44.2 per cent demonstrate gender bias.

According to UN Women:

  • Women and girls remain underrepresented across the creation, use, and regulation of technology.

  • They are less likely to use digital services or enter tech-related careers, and significantly more likely to face online harassment and violence.

According to recent data, women’s exclusion from the digital world comes with massive costs for all, and has shaved USD 1 trillion from the gross domestic product of low- and middle-income countries in the last decade, it states.

So the UN is arguing that he voices of women, girls, and other marginalized groups are urgently needed in decision-making processes.

Tech that was genuinely gender-responsive could transform innovation, empower women on a global scale and tackle inequality in the digital age, it argues.

In his message to commemorate IWD UN Secretary-General António Guterres said:

Women today make up under a third of the workforce in science, technology, engineering, and maths. And when women are under-represented in developing new technologies, discrimination may be baked in from the start. Investing in women uplifts all people, communities, and countries.

UN Women Executive Director Soma Bahous said:

Women and girls have just as much right to access the digital world and prosper in it as men and boys. Their creativity, knowledge and perspectives can shape a future where technology contributes to transforming social norms, amplifying women’s voices, pushing forward against online harassment, preventing the perpetuation of algorithmic biases, and distributing the benefits of digitalization as the great equalizer to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

Our vision of equality, of what our world could be, for all of us, can and will include the equal enjoyment of the fruits of technology and innovation without fear of violence or abuse of any sort.

Women and girls must be able to engage, create, learn and work, safely and productively either online or offline, making the most of all the opportunities in every sphere of life and at every stage of it, in education, in the economy, in society and in politics.


UN Women and the Inter-Parliamentarian Union (IPU) have also produced the Women in Politics map,.

The new data—as of 1 January 2023—shows that women’s voices and experiences are missing:

  • Less than 1 in 4 cabinet ministers is a woman, mainly leading on policy areas related to gender equality and women’s rights, while men still dominate economic, defence, energy, and other powerful portfolios

  • Women in top political leadership jobs worldwide represent only 11.3 per cent of countries’ Heads of State, and 9.8 per cent of countries’ Heads of Government.

  • Women now make up 26.5% of Members of Parliament around the world, up slightly from 25.5% in 2021.

Tonight I’ll be hosting an online Guardian Live event with Davina McCall, Miatta Fahnbulleh and Jo Cheetham – and it’s going to be great.

We are going to be talking about women’s power and how it can be harnessed for change – and these are women who know how to get stuff done.

Here’s a little bit about them

- Davina McCall, whose taboo-smashing documentaries have put conversations about menopause into the mainstream. She continues to combat misinformation and bring together a heartening sense of community and a positive collective spirit.

- Miatta Fahnbulleh, the CEO of the New Economics Foundation, a Labour candidate and part of the groundbreaking initiative, MotherRed, which strives to amplify more mothers’ voices in politics.

- Jo Cheetham, author of Killjoy which tells the story of how she went from not being particularly political or assertive, would never raise her hand in class and apologised to people who barged into her in the street, to joining the hugely successful No More Page 3 campaign.

If you’d like to join us, you can sign up here!

Really interesting report by the the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), funded by the Nuffield Foundation, on the gender pension gap.

The findings are pretty stark

– 59% of women were saving into a pension in 2019, compared with 66% of men

– Average annual pension contributions made by women were £2,600, £800 less than the £3,400 put in by men

– Even for the youngest workers, women are putting less aside for their pension

– Women born in the early 1950s, who have reached pensionable age, have private pension incomes around 45% lower than men

All this has long term implications says author Heidi Karjalainen

But when do pension contributions drop off a cliff? After women produce the tax payers of the future of course!

Police officers wielding batons charged at participants of a march in Islamabad on Wednesday, as thousands of women took to the streets of cities in Pakistan despite being told to stay at home.

Across the country, women held rallies – known as Aurat marches – demanding equal rights and the end of violence against women, while chanting slogans for the economic, political and social rights of women, and freedom for women from patriarchy.

In Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, Afghan refugees and women from the Hazara community also took part in the march and demanded refugees’ and women’s rights for Afghans.

In Ghotki, thousands of women could be seen marching in protest.

After the incident in Islamabad, Pakistan’s interior minister said he had suspended the police officers involved.

The interior minister tweeted:

Amna Mawaz, a participant of the march in Islamabad, told the Guardian:

At first they, police, put containers in our way to block us from attending the march and then they resorted to violence.

Women are facing a plethora of problems and issues here and we have seen a rise in violence against women, and not far from here, a woman was gang-raped in a park in Lahore.

The society is decaying and we are confronting the state and feudal mentality for our rights. We would fight this mentality no matter what.

One well-known activist, Amna Masood Janjua, who has been fighting against enforced disappearances since the disappearance of her husband,

said women affected by them experienced crippling economic and emotional impacts:

When we, women, go out to protest against enforced disappearances, we are declared as anti-state. Be it Kashmir or Palestine, women are leading the fight against enforced disappearances.

Updated

More incredible scenes of women protesting in Pakistan, here at the Aurat march in Ghotki in northern Sindh:

Updated

Hundreds of women join protest despite ban in Lahore, Pakistan

About 2,000 women have rallied in the Pakistani city of Lahore despite efforts by authorities to bar the protest and withdraw security for an event frequently the target of violence, Al Jazeera reports.

Rallies on International Women’s Day have received fierce backlash since they were embraced four years ago in deeply conservative and patriarchal Pakistan.

On Tuesday, dozens of events marking International Women’s Day – known as the Aurat March in Pakistan – were held across the country.

Non-violent counterprotests, dubbed “hijab marches”, were also staged by women from conservative religious groups in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad where participants called for the preservation of Islamic values.

Our Pakistan correspondent Shah Meer Baloch explains that the Punjab government has banned all political rallies and gatherings before Aurat march (Women’s march) and former prime minister Imran Khan’s election campaign rally in Lahore.

Earlier the court had intervened to give permission to Aurat march in Lahore after the district administration had denied permission because of security reasons.

He reports there have been clashes between the activists and journalists and the police have intervened.

We’ll get more on that shortly.

Updated

This International Women’s Day 73 female journalists will be behind bars, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which is sounding the alarm about the disappearance of women from the Afghan media landscape.

The proportion of imprisoned female journalists has doubled in the past five years, according to RSF’s press freedom barometer.

Fourteen countries around the world are holding female journalists in prison: China (21), Iran (12), Belarus (10), Vietnam (4) and Turkey (4).

The RSF says female journalists have paid the price for being at the front line in recent crises.

Iran:

Of the 12 women journalists currently detained in Iran, 11 were arrested in the wake of the protests about Kurdish student Mahsa Amini’s death in police custody. Two of the women journalists who did most to draw the public’s attention to her case – Nilufar Hamedi, by going to the hospital where she was in a coma, and Elahe Mohammadi, by covering her funeral – are accused of “propaganda against the system” and “conspiring to act against national security – charges that could carry the death penalty.

Afghanistan:

The media landscape in Afghanistan has changed beyond recognition in less than two years. Half of the 526 media outlets that existed until the summer of 2021 have had to close and, of the 2,300 women journalists registered prior to 15 August 2021 (the date of the Taliban takeover), fewer than 200 are still working. Almost all of the women journalists (90%) have had to leave their jobs and some have fled the country, although exactly how many have managed to flee is not known.

Those still working must accept conditions that are becoming more and more draconian if not impossible. The Taliban recently banned women journalists from interviewing men and from attending press conferences in some provinces. Similarly, they are banned from hosting radio or TV shows together with male colleagues, or from receiving male guests.

The Taliban Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Repression of Vice has also imposed a strict dress code. When women journalists are on camera, they must be covered from head to toe and only their eyes may be seen.

Updated

Despite the terrible weather, people have gathered in Parliament Square for a protest organised by Waspi (Women Against State Pension Inequality).

The Waspi campaign argues that thousands of older women are struggling with the cost of living because of a pensions “injustice” dating back years that has never been put right.

As my colleague Rupert Jones explained in this piece:

Waspi was founded seven years ago to fight for compensation for women who lost out because of the way changes to the state pension age (SPA) were made.

For decades the SPA for women was 60. An increase to 65, phased in between 2010 and 2020, was included in the Pensions Act 1995, but in 2011 the coalition government pushed through a speeding-up of the process. As a result, the SPA for women increased to 65 by November 2018, and then to 66 by October 2020.

Many say they had always expected to receive their pension at 60, then discovered their SPA had increased by four, five or six years. The government did not write to any woman affected by the rise for nearly 14 years after the law was passed in 1995.

MP Andrew Gwynne joined them:

Updated

As if we needed any further proof that England’s Lucy Bronze is a Queen among women.

Updated

Here are some pictures of how International Women’s Day is being celebrated across the world.

A woman celebrates by taking the plunge in the waters of the Firth of Forth in Edinburgh, Scotland.
A woman celebrates by taking the plunge in the waters of the Firth of Forth in Edinburgh, Scotland. Photograph: Alicia Bruce/Reuters
Students light flares during a rally in Milan, Italy.
Students light flares during a rally in Milan, Italy. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Dozens of activists join domestic workers outside the parliament building in Jakarta, Indonesia, to commemorate IWD and demand lawmakers pass the long-awaited bill to protect domestic workers.
Dozens of activists join domestic workers outside the parliament building in Jakarta, Indonesia, to commemorate IWD and demand lawmakers pass the long-awaited bill to protect domestic workers. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Updated

IranWire reports that in London, protesters will walk from the Palace of Westminster to the Iranian embassy in the Kensington area of London, dressed as handmaids in support of the rights of women in Iran.

Each person will hold a poster of a female protester who has been killed, maimed or imprisoned by the regime since the start of “Mahsa protests” in Iran in September 2022.

The protest movement was sparked by the death of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, in the custody of morality police. Amini had been arrested for an alleged breach of the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code for women.

The protest has been organised by Stage of Freedom.

Women dressed as Handmaids march through London on Wednesday, carrying placards that show the images of Iranian women and girls who have been detained or killed in Iran during the protests.
Women dressed as Handmaids march through London on Wednesday, carrying placards that show the images of Iranian women and girls who have been detained or killed in Iran during the protests. Photograph: Isabel Infantes/EPA
Women dressed as Handmaids march with placards that have images of female protesters detained or killed in Iran.
Women dressed as Handmaids march with placards that have images of female protesters detained or killed in Iran. Photograph: Isabel Infantes/EPA

Updated

Gender Pay Gap Bot Twitter account is back this year, posting the difference between women and men’s pay at companies that tweet using the #IWD hashtag.

Updated

A woman holds a portrait of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian woman who died after being arrested in Tehran by the Islamic Republic’s morality police, during a demonstration in front of the Bundestag in Berlin on International Women’s Day on Wednesday.
A woman holds a portrait of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian woman who died after being arrested in Tehran by the Islamic Republic’s morality police, during a demonstration in front of the Bundestag in Berlin on International Women’s Day on Wednesday. Photograph: John MacDougall/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

In India, a mural painted by women is being revealed at a metro station. In Mexico, protesters will be on the streets, demanding women’s rights. Jamaica will see the first all-female sitting of parliament. And in China, men will present the women in their lives with gifts. Happy International Women’s Day.

For years, women have marked the now-annual event on 8 March in different ways, but mostly to build momentum on issues that matter to them, and to inspire change.

The day’s origins date back to the beginning of the 20th century: in 1908, thousands of women marched through New York City, demanding better working hours and pay. A year later, the Socialist party of America declared a Women’s Day.

The idea of an international day came from Clara Zetkin, then leader of the “women’s office” for the Social Democratic party in Germany, while she was at a conference in Copenhagen in 1910. She proposed a celebration on the same day every year to press for demands.

You can read more of this look back of past IWD celebrations here:

Updated

Here are some images of women in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, taking part in an International Women’s Day rally.

Women take part in a rally to mark the International Women’s Day in Bishkek on 8 March 2023.
Women take part in a rally to mark the International Women’s Day in Bishkek on 8 March 2023. Photograph: Vyacheslav Oseledko/AFP/Getty Images
Women take part in a rally to mark the International Women’s Day in Bishkek on Wednesday.
Women take part in a rally to mark the International Women’s Day in Bishkek on Wednesday. Photograph: Vyacheslav Oseledko/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

Ireland to hold referendum to remove 'woman's place in home' reference from constitution

Ireland is to hold a referendum to establish gender equality and to remove a constitutional reference to a woman’s place being in the home.

The government announcement – timed to coincide with International Women’s Day – said the referendum in November will seek to amend articles 40 and 41 of the 1937 constitution, including this reference: “By her life within the home, woman gives to the state a support without which the common good cannot be achieved.”

The amendment will propose enshrining a specific reference to gender equality and non-discrimination, in line with the recommendation of a citizens’ assembly on gender equality.

“For too long, women and girls have carried a disproportionate share of caring responsibilities, been discriminated against at home and in the workplace, objectified or lived in fear of domestic or gender-based violence,” said the taoiseach, Leo Varadkar.

The National Women’s Council welcomed the announcement. “If passed, this will bring significant change. It would recognise the reality of women’s lives and ambitions in modern Irish society, the true diversity of families, and the importance of care for all of society.”

Updated

Really interesting talking to Dr Amanda Gosling at the University of Kent, who has spliced microdata from the Family Expenditure Survey (1978-1999) and the Family Resources Survey (2000-2021), to examine the extent of the “motherhood penalty”.

Her argument is that narrowing of the pay gap between men and women is largely driven by the introduction of the minimum wage and the relative falling wages of working-class men.

She states that the percentage gap in earnings between mothers and fathers with post-school education has actually increased since the late 1970s in the UK.

Here’s an extract from my story today:

According to data from the Office for National Statistics, based on the Annual Survey for Hours and Earnings (ASHE), the gender pay gap for full-time employees was 8.3% in 2022, up from 7.7% in 2021. Among all employees, the gender pay gap is 14.9%.

But Gosling said the gap for mothers was considerably larger than the one represented by the official gender pay gap. By her calculations, the hourly wages of mothers is 72% of the hourly wage of fathers, which reflects the fact that working mums are stalled in their career path, and less likely to go into the highest-paid roles.

The research suggests that for higher-educated women, the gender pay gap has actually worsened since the 70s. Its preliminary findings show that in 1978, mothers aged between 23 and 59 who left school after the age of 18 made about 72% of the wages of equivalent fathers. By 2019 this had fallen to 69%.

This was despite the fact that mothers were now more educated than fathers, added Gosling. In 1978, 10% of fathers and 9% of mothers had any post-school education; by 2019 this had risen to 45% and 48% respectably. “Arguably, then, the current overall gap between the wages of mothers and fathers is understated because is does not control for the fact that mothers are more skilled,” she said.

In contrast, the gap between mothers and fathers without any post-school education has reduced significantly. Using the same datasets, mothers made 57% of the fathers’ wage in 1978, which increased to 70% in 2019.

Dr Gosling said:

Barriers to career progression for mothers with some post-school education have hardly shifted. The gap in pay between mothers and fathers looks very similar now as it did in the late 1970s. The story for Gen-Xers is the same for boomers and the millennials.

Full story here:

Updated

Women spend more hours on unpaid care work than men, with the gap particularly wide in low- and middle-income countries.

On International Women’s Day, we would like to hear from women around the world about the caring responsibilities they bear daily. What duties do you shoulder – and how do they compare with your partner’s? How do you feel about this?

We are particularly interested in speaking with women living in countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Please get in touch below if you would like to share your point of view.

Updated

This report from PwC is also noteworthy. Our economics editor Larry Elliott reports that women in Britain are being priced out of work and suffering from a growing gender pay gap as the result of a lack of affordable child care.

He writes:

With the chancellor thought to be looking at ways of boosting employment in next week’s package, a survey by the consultancy group PwC found the UK slipping down the international league table for women in work.

PwC said Britain had dropped five places to 14th in the ranking of the 38 rich-country members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, pointing to the lack of affordable childcare as a barrier to progress.

Data for 2021 showed the gender pay gap widening four times faster in the UK than the average for the OECD, primarily due to the financial penalty from motherhood.

Larice Stielow, a senior economist at PwC, said:

An 18-year-old woman entering the workforce today will not see pay equality in her working lifetime. At the rate the gender pay gap is closing, it will take more than 50 years to reach gender pay parity.

The motherhood penalty is now the most significant driver of the gender pay gap and, in the UK, women are being hit even harder by the rising cost of living and increasing cost of childcare.

With this and the gap in free childcare provision between ages one and three, more women are being priced out of work. For many it is more affordable to leave work than remain in employment and pay for childcare, especially for families at lower income levels.

Full story here:

Another small joy of IWD is watching how many firms delete their self-congratulatory “Women, yay! Equality something, something … commitment in our company etc” once the Gender Pay Gap Bot on Twitter points out how much more they pay men than women.

Updated

One of my favourite things to do on IWD is celebrate the achievements of individuals or organisations who are actually making a positive difference in the area of gender equality.

Our incredible Lionesses certainly belong in that category. Since their historic Euro 2022 win, the England defender Lotte Wubben‑Moy and the England captain, Leah Williamson, have spearheaded a campaign to provide equal access to all sports in physical education for boys and girls, a minimum of two hours of PE a week and a multimillion‑pound investment in school sports and after‑school activities. Today the government committed to it.

The plans set out to make the same sports available to boys and girls, where wanted, and a minimum two hours of PE a week up to the end of year 11. The government said more than £600m would be provided over the next two years to improve PE and sports in primary schools and up to another £57m to open more school sport facilities outside school hours, especially targeted at girls, disadvantaged pupils and pupils with special educational needs. Parity of provision for girls is to be rewarded with a Kitemark scheme.

Football Association figures published last July showed 72% of girls play as much football as boys in primary school but that the figure drops to 44% in secondary school and that only 40% of secondary schools offer girls the same access to football via after-school clubs as boys.

As Suzy puts it:

Updated

This is a really excellent comment piece from Nilanjana Bhowmick who argues that in India – like in much of the world – International Women’s Day has been captured by commerce.

IWD is not a spa voucher people!

Is it any wonder that Indian women end up doing almost 10 times more unpaid caregiving than Indian men? If International Women’s Day (IWD) is for taking stock of gender inequalities, let’s do that. If the government was interested in bringing change, it would announce women-friendly work policies. If businesses were serious, they would take a good look at how gender-responsive their organisations are, and make changes.

In Indian society, businesses have managed to dumb down an important day for putting out calls of action to demand political, economic and social equality for women.

IWD is seen as a marketing opportunity, with superficial, slogan-centric, hashtag-dependent campaigns targeted at profits rather than beginning a conversation about vicious inequalities that still persist in this country. The brands are commodifying feminism, but if only they showed true commitment to the day and pushed for gender equalities, they would actually benefit.

A reminder from our diplomatic correspondent Patrick Wintour about why International Women’s Day remains a significant and important day for drawing attention to the huge discrimination, violence and abuse so many women around the globe are subjected to.

He writes about a new campaign calling for gender apartheid to be recognised as a crime under international law – which in an era where Afghan girls are prevented from going to school and Iranian children are killed as anti-regime protests continue, feels acutely needed.

Here’s an extract:

A prominent group of Afghan and Iranian women are backing a campaign calling for gender apartheid to be recognised as a crime under international law.

The campaign, launched on International Women’s Day, reflects a belief that the current laws covering discrimination against women do not capture the systematic nature of the policies imposed in Afghanistan and Iran to downgrade the status of women in society.

Signatories of the open letter include the Iranian Nobel peace prize laureate Shirin Ebadi; the first female deputy speaker of the Afghan parliament, Fawzia Koofi; a commissioner of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, Benafsha Yaqoobi; as well as many activists still fighting for their rights in Afghanistan and Iran.

It’s a crowded field for research and data dumps on IWD, but there are some that stand out.

My excellent colleague Richard Partington – a rare breed of male journalist who regularly writes about economic issues affecting women – has covered a landmark survey by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) which shows that two-thirds of women with childcare responsibilities say their career has been stymied by having kids.

Here’s an extract:

Two-thirds of women with childcare responsibilities believe they have missed out on career progression as a direct result, business leaders have warned, amid growing pressure on the government to boost support for parents.

Ahead of next week’s budget, the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) said tackling barriers to work posed by soaring childcare costs and a lack of support for elderly or disabled relatives was vital for equality and the economy.

In a landmark survey of more than 4,000 women, it found as many as 67% felt childcare duties in the past decade had cost them progress at work – including pay rises, promotions, or career development. Almost 90% believed that additional support was needed.

Read the full piece here:

(As an aside my brother just popped around to give me a proper coffee and a hot cross bun to say happy IWD. Perhaps this could catch on as a new custom that all male loved ones do for the women in their lives? Other suggestions welcome.)

Hello and happy International Women’s Day! I do hope all of our female readers have been woken with a huge cake and and an apology from the patriarchy.

I’ll be with you throughout the day to look at how people around the world are marking International Women’s Day. I’ll also be sifting through the avalanche of PR guff I will be sent today to find some hidden gems of excellent and enlightening research.

But mainly, I want to hear from YOU – are you doing anything to mark International Women’s Day? Do you want to rant a little? Or maybe provide a moment of positivity?

Do it! I’m on alexandra.topping@theguardian.com and @lexytopping on Twitter. I’ll try to get back to all readers, PR folk working for multinational companies with large pay gaps and big IWD promotion budgets….don’t hold your breath.

Updated

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