Rallies, conferences and events marking International Women's Day have taken place across the globe, with a focus on abortion, equal pay and an end to gender repressive laws in countries including Afghanistan and Iran.
While International Women's Day on March 8 was a global celebration of women's achievements and increasing visibility, it was also a platform to call out inequality and gender repression.
Demonstrators wore purple — which represents dignity and justice — as they took to the streets from Jakarta and Singapore, to Istanbul and Berlin, to Caracas and Mexico City, calling for equality not just in their own countries, but also in places where women have been stripped of even basic rights.
Over the past year, girls in Afghanistan were banned from education, mass women's rights protests erupted in Iran, and a landmark US abortion ruling was overturned.
Speaking in a general assembly ahead of International Women's Day, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that global progress on women's rights was "vanishing before our eyes".
"Gender equality is growing more distant. On the current track, UN Women puts it 300 years away," Mr Guterres said.
Mr Guterres listed maternal mortality, girls blocked from education, children forced into early marriage and denial of personal autonomy and rights over their bodies among a long list of issues women face globally.
"Women's rights are being abused, threatened and violated around the world," he said.
"International Women's Day is a call to action, action to stand with women who are demanding their fundamental rights at great personal cost."
Abortion rights calls in US, South America
In the Americas, reproductive rights were a key theme after the landmark Roe v Wade US abortion ruling was overturned last year, and with abortion also tightly restricted or banned in much of Latin America.
Demonstrators gathered on Wednesday at Miami's Freedom Tower to protest a proposed ban on abortions after six weeks.
However, elsewhere in the US, International Women's Day was not widely observed.
In Mexico, hundreds of women marched against gender-based violence, while activists said about 200 women were still in prison under outdated anti-abortion state laws, even though the country's Supreme Court decriminalised abortion last year.
Hundreds of women in Peru protested in Lima against President Dina Boluarte and criticised her education minister, who recently compared rural women protesters to animals.
In Venezuela, women marched and chanted messages for better wages and improved working conditions.
Brazil's president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, announced measures seeking to promote and protect women, after years of setbacks partially fuelled by the rise of far-right forces under his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro.
Mr Lula presented a bill that would guarantee equal pay for women and men who perform the same jobs and committed 372 million reais ($73 million) to build domestic violence shelters.
Demands for equal pay throughout Asia
In Japan — which ranked 116 out of 146 countries on gender parity in a World Economic Forum global report last year — chief cabinet secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said progress had been made on improving women's working conditions but more had to be done.
"The situation for women, who are trying to balance household and workplace responsibilities, is quite difficult in our country and has been noted as an issue," he said.
"Measures to tackle this are still just halfway complete."
In the Philippines, hundreds of protesters from various women's groups rallied in Manila for higher wages and decent jobs.
"We are seeing the widest gender pay gap," protest leader Joms Salvador said.
"We are seeing an unprecedented increase in the number of women workers who are in informal work without any protection."
Demonstrations were also held in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Bangkok, however, in Hong Kong, a planned protest by The Hong Kong Women Workers’ Association was cancelled by police, who cited a risk of violence.
Russia using Women's Day to attack LGBT lifestyles
In Russia, where International Women's Day is a national holiday, President Vladimir Putin presented state awards to several women during a Kremlin ceremony.
He singled out a military paramedic and a journalist for fulfilling their duties during the war in Ukraine, which the Kremlin calls "a special military operation".
However, the head of Russia's upper house of parliament used the occasion to launch a vehement attack on LGBT lifestyles.
"Men and women are the biological, social and cultural backbones of communities," Valentina Matviyenko wrote in a blog on the Federation Council's website.
"Therefore, there are no dangerous gender games in our country and never will be.
"Let us leave it to the West to conduct this dangerous experiment on itself."
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised women for their role in defending the nation against Russia, pointing to those who "teach, study, rescue, heal, fight — fight for Ukraine".
New pledges in Europe, Canada
Some governments marked Wednesday with legislative changes or pledges.
Canada repealed historic indecency and anti-abortion laws, French President Emmanuel Macron said he backed the inclusion of the right to abortion in the constitution, and Ireland announced a referendum to remove outmoded references to women in its constitution.
Italy's first female prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, said state-controlled companies should have at least one leader who is a woman.
In Spain, the government passed a pioneering law in December to make it easier to access abortions, but divisions in the feminist movement over issues such as transgender rights and prostitution led to competing rallies on Wednesday.
At a public Women's Day event, a group of young women interrupted Equality Minister Irene Montero to argue with her about a new law, which allows anyone aged 16 and older to change their gender on official documents without medical certification.
In Paris, demonstrators marched to demand better pensions for women who work part-time.
The protest came hours after President Emmanuel Macron's government presented a new gender equity plan, which would prohibit companies that do not not publish a gender equality index — or have a poor rating — from getting public contracts. Women's salaries in France are, on average, 15.8 per cent below men's.
In Kosovo, hundreds of ethnic Albanian women protesting domestic violence threw black-and-red smoke bombs at the police headquarters.
The protesters — who rallied under the slogan "We march, do not celebrate" — accused police, the prosecutor's office and the courts of gender discrimination.
In Türkiye, thousands of women defied a ban on protests to hold what they called a "feminist night march" to protest Türkiye's withdrawal from a key European treaty protecting women from domestic violence.
Calls for solidarity with Iranian women
As Washington marked International Women's Day, the United States imposed sanctions on two senior Iranian prison officials it accused of being responsible for serious human rights abuses against women and girls.
Britain also announced a package of sanctions against what it described as "global violators of women's rights", while the EU announced new sanctions on Tuesday.
In London, protesters marched to the Iranian embassy in costumes inspired by the novel and television series "The Handmaid's Tale", while in Valencia, Spain, women cut their hair in support of Iranian women.
The death last September of 23-year-old Mahsa Amini while in the custody of morality police in Tehran unleashed the biggest anti-government protests in Iran in years.
In recent days, Iran's clerical rulers have faced renewed pressure as public anger was compounded by a wave of poisonings affecting girls in dozens of schools.
Iran has arrested several people it said were linked to the poisonings and accused some of having connections to "foreign-based dissident media".
'Gender Apartheid' in Afghanistan
The UN envoy in Afghanistan warned on Wednesday that a Taliban administration crackdown on women's rights is likely to lead to a drop in aid and development funding in the country.
The UN identified Afghanistan as the most-repressive country in the world for women and girls since the Taliban takeover in 2021.
Girls are banned from education beyond sixth grade and women are barred from working, studying, travelling without a male companion, and even going to parks.
Women must also cover themselves from head to toe and are barred from working at national and international non-governmental organisations, which is disrupting the delivery of humanitarian aid.
"The Taliban have sought not only to erase women from public life, but to extinguish our basic humanity," Afghan women's rights campaigner Zubaida Akbar told the UN Security Council.
"There is one term that appropriately describes the situation of Afghan woman today: Gender apartheid."
Despite police crackdowns, small groups of women took to the streets of Kabul chanting: "Save Afghanistan's women" and "We will get our rights".
