This year as we celebrate Women’s history month in the United States and the Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations (CSW 69) around the world, I urge you to adopt this phrase with me, “each strike against a woman is a strike against all of us”
From a historical standpoint, I am happy to bring to your awareness the fact that, since 1995, each US President has issued an annual proclamation designating the month of March as “Women’s History Month.” On a global scale, the preamble enshrined into the United Nations Charter executed in San Francisco in 1945, included a reaffirmation which pronounced, “faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small”.
It is important for us all to realize that of the 160 signatories present that day in 1945, only 4 were women.They were, Minerva Bernardino (Dominican Republic), Virginia Gildersleeve (United States), Bertha Lutz (Brazil) and Wu Yi- Fang (China). Two of them, Bertha Lutz and Minerva Bernardino, had proposed to add “women” to the founding document of the United Nations. As can be deduced, it has been a very long and tedious fight to get women included in the political machinery of the world so they can represent an unfairly marginalized group who gave birth to the world’s population as we know it.
Today, in the month of March 2025, I encourage you join me in embracing the theme which is so crucial and ubiquitous that it will take collective action and unwavering commitment to eradicate. All violence against women must stop at all ages and wherever found.
We have gone for too long without doing our part to put a stop to this callous inhumane act. According to the World Health Organization, 1 in 3 women have experienced violence in their lifetime which includes physical, sexual, or both, in 2023, 51,100 women and girls were killed by intimate partners or family members. And here is the most alarming potion of the factual illustration we are making, it has been established that, at least 200 million girls and women have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM) around the world. And finally, according data provided by United Nations women, an estimated 736 million women—almost one in three—have been subjected to physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, or both at least once in their life (30 per cent of women aged 15 and older). This figure does not include sexual harassment.
Women who have experienced violence are more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety disorders, unplanned pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections and HIV, with long-lasting consequences.
As a global humanitarian, I humbly appeal to all people to join hands together and assist with the complete eradication of all types of violence against women. I further appeal to all people of goodwill in the world to join us and hold up a virtual placard affixed to their benevolent hearts which reads, “each strike against a woman is a strike against all of us”.
I sincerely thank you with assurances of my highest consideration as we uplift the dignity of women all around the world.
Disclaimer: Views expressed above are the author’s own.
Divya Agarwal
