Women’s Day

Women's Day

Women’s Day. An article by detective Pelekasi Nikos in the newspaper “Pontiaki Gnomi”.

World Women’s Day has been established to be celebrated every year on 8 March, commemorating a major protest on 8 March 1857 by textile workers in New York City who demanded better working conditions. Over the years, while this holiday had a political background, it was subsequently established simply as a holiday in which men honour the female gender by giving gifts and flowers.

With the resurgence of the feminist movement after 1975, it is celebrated under the auspices of the UN, bringing women’s problems and rights to the forefront.

Thus, on that day, mainly around the world, articles from the international and Greek Constitution on women’s rights and their struggles to claim a better life, at all levels of action, are shown in the media, radio, television and internet.

In this way, public opinion is informed about important issues such as the abuse of women (physical – psychological), often by the husband or other members of the family environment due to drunkenness, unemployment or psychological problems, or by relatives, for example for reasons of honour, and at the same time it learns which institutions it should contact if it becomes aware of such a phenomenon, in order to denounce such behaviour, such as the Greek police, etc.

The woman was and is the easy victim for all kinds of abusive behaviour against her, because of her physical constitution and often because of her inability to be independent (due to unemployment or financial problems), but more importantly because she believes that the abuser will one day change, which unfortunately rarely happens in most cases.

Also, on the occasion of Women’s Day, problems such as the rape of women, slavery, human trafficking, sexual harassment at work are highlighted, which unfortunately still take place at a global level and are getting worse and worse due to the economic crisis.

In Third Countries, unfortunately, the problems faced by women are many more, since local law is above and beyond international rules and laws. There, for example, a woman who has committed fornication or adultery faces punishment by stoning to death to make an example of others, but this does not restrict similar phenomena. Also, girls at a very young age have to undergo the clitoridectomy that older women have irreverently established to be performed and which has now become part of local law in these countries.

However, despite the efforts of women’s rights organizations around the world, such as avaaz.org, who are trying to awaken public opinion everywhere, e.g. by collecting online signatures to prevent these morbid phenomena of abuse of women, nothing seems to change on the local map.

We hope that at some point the International Women’s Day will be celebrated in a meaningful way, not only as a commemoration of a protest by women workers in the textile industry, but also by solving problems that relate to the present day, which violate the dignity of women and reduce them to something lower than an animal.

Women’s Day.

Detective Pelekasis Nikos and Associates

February 2016
Sheet number 83