International Women's Day Includes Demonstrations, Votes

Women across Latin America bathed their city streets in purple on Friday in commemoration of International Women's Day at a time when advocates for gender rights in the region are witnessing both historic steps forward and major setbacks. Elsewhere, the right to an abortion officially became part of France's constitution, and Ireland voted on redefining gender roles. Demonstrations also were held in Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa, Afghanistan, Russia, and elsewhere. "Girls just wanna have fundamental human rights," a sign at a rally in Serbia said. International Women's Day is a national holiday in about 20 nations, including Russia, Ukraine, and Afghanistan. The events involved:

• Latin America: Protesters in multiple nations demonstrated against soaring rates of violence against women, including disappearances and murders known as femicides, per the AP. According to figures from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, a woman is murdered for gender-related reasons in the continent every two hours. At the same time, women have increasingly won political office; Mexico is headed for the election of its first woman president this year. Demonstrators in Argentina marched against the actions of President Javier Milei. He's recently shuttered the country's women's affairs ministry and the anti-discrimination agency.
• France: A ceremony in Paris celebrated the enshrinement of abortion rights, per the AP. Cheers erupted in the Place Vendome when the nation's justice minister used a 19th-century printing press to seal the amendment in the constitution.
• Afghanistan: Women held rare protests against Taliban restrictions. The country's rulers have barred girls and women from education beyond sixth grade and from most jobs. Females are also barred from public spaces like parks. A group gathered indoors in Kabul, holding up signs to hide their faces, and chanted, "No to gender apartheid" and "Afghanistan is hell for women."
• India: The government cut the price of cooking gas cylinders. Prime Minister Narendra Modi posting on social media that the move was "in line with our commitment to empowering women."

• Italy: Thousands marched in Rome against gender-based violence. Data show more than half of the 120 women murdered in Italy last year were killed by their current or former partners.
• Ireland: A national vote was being held on two referendums to reword elements of the constitution that the government argues are sexist, per the AP. One would change the reference to families being based on marriage to say they can be founded "on marriage or on other durable relationships." The other that would remove the passage saying that "mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labor to the neglect of their duties in the home." The constitution would instead say the state will strive to support "the provision of care by members of a family to one another."
• UNICEF assessment: A report issued Friday by the United Nations agency says that about 30 million people have undergone female genital mutilation in the past eight years. The percentage of women and girls subjected to the practice is falling, the report says. But it finds the global progress toward its elimination—which the UN wants to achieve by 2030—is inadequate, per the AP.

(More International Women's Day stories.)