Today March 8, which is a major day of global celebration for the economic,
political and social achievements of women, I hereby send warm greetings to
all mothers, sisters and daughters out there.
Sister Jabou Joh where are you? I hope that you forgive me for what ever
wrong judgement I might have made during my term as list manager. No one is
perfect. We miss your opinion here on the Gambia-l. Please don’t give up
the struggle.

Regards,
Momodou Camara

Below is a brief history about this day that I culled from the UN website:

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International Women's Day

International Women's Day (8 March) is an occasion marked by women's groups
around the world. This date is also commemorated at the United Nations and
is designated in many countries as a national holiday. When women on all
continents, often divided by national boundaries and by ethnic, linguistic,
cultural, economic and political differences, come together to celebrate
their Day, they can look back to a tradition that represents at least nine
decades of struggle for equality, justice, peace and development.
International Women's Day is the story of ordinary women as makers of
history; it is rooted in the centuries-old struggle of women to participate
in society on an equal footing with men. In ancient Greece, Lysistrata
initiated a sexual strike against men in order to end war; during the
French Revolution, Parisian women calling for "liberty, equality,
fraternity" marched on Versailles to demand women's suffrage.
The idea of an International Women's Day first arose at the turn of the
century, which in the industrialized world was a period of expansion and
turbulence, booming population growth and radical ideologies. Following is
a brief chronology of the most important events:
1909
In accordance with a declaration by the Socialist Party of America, the
first National Woman's Day was observed across the United States on 28
February. Women continued to celebrate it on the last Sunday of that month
through 1913.
1910
The Socialist International, meeting in Copenhagen, established a Women's
Day, international in character, to honour the movement for women's rights
and to assist in achieving universal suffrage for women. The proposal was
greeted with unanimous approval by the conference of over 100 women from 17
countries, which included the first three women elected to the Finnish
parliament. No fixed date was selected for the observance.
1911
As a result of the decision taken at Copenhagen the previous year,
International Women's Day was marked for the first time (19 March) in
Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, where more than one million
women and men attended rallies. In addition to the right to vote and to
hold public office, they demanded the right to work, to vocational training
and to an end to discrimination on the job.
Less than a week later, on 25 March, the tragic Triangle Fire in New York
City took the lives of more than 140 working girls, most of them Italian
and Jewish immigrants. This event had a significant impact on labour
legislation in the United States, and the working conditions leading up to
the disaster were invoked during subsequent observances of International
Women's Day.
1913-1914
As part of the peace movement brewing on the eve of World War I, Russian
women observed their first International Women's Day on the last Sunday in
February 1913. Elsewhere in Europe, on or around 8 March of the following
year, women held rallies either to protest the war or to express solidarity
with their sisters.
1917
With 2 million Russian soldiers dead in the war, Russian women again chose
the last Sunday in February to strike for "bread and peace". Political
leaders opposed the timing of the strike, but the women went on anyway. The
rest is history: Four days later the Czar was forced to abdicate and the
provisional Government granted women the right to vote. That historic
Sunday fell on 23 February on the Julian calendar then in use in Russia,
but on 8 March on the Gregorian calendar in use elsewhere.
Since those early years, International Women's Day has assumed a new global
dimension for women in developed and developing countries alike. The
growing international women's movement, which has been strengthened by four
global United Nations women's conferences, has helped make the
commemoration a rallying point for coordinated efforts to demand women's
rights and participation in the political and economic process.
Increasingly, International Women's Day is a time to reflect on progress
made, to call for change and to celebrate acts of courage and determination
by ordinary women who have played an extraordinary role in the history of
women's rights.

The Role of the United Nations
Few causes promoted by the United Nations have generated more intense and
widespread support than the campaign to promote and protect the equal
rights of women. The Charter of the United Nations, signed in San Francisco
in 1945, was the first international agreement to proclaim gender equality
as a fundamental human right. Since then, the Organization has helped
create a historic legacy of internationally agreed strategies, standards,
programmes and goals to advance the status of women worldwide.
Over the years, United Nations action for the advancement of women has
taken four clear directions: promotion of legal measures; mobilization of
public opinion and international action; training and research, including
the compilation of gender desegregated statistics; and direct assistance to
disadvantaged groups. Today a central organizing principle of the work of
the United Nations is that no enduring solution to society's most
threatening social, economic and political problems can be found without
the full participation, and the full empowerment, of the world's women.

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