International Women's Day was first celebrated on March 19, 1911 in many European countries, such as Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland.
During World War I, women gathered a meeting in 1914 to rally solidarity on March 8. Since then, March 8 was officially designated as International Women's Day. This celebration was meant to bring the awareness and advocacy for women’s rights across cultures.
To this day, access to education, health, and economic welfare for women is still considered inadequate. According to UN Women, data shows 60% of women are more vulnerable to low food security. In education, an estimated 15 million girls worldwide do not yet have the opportunity to read and write. Not only that, globally it is known that 330 million women struggle to survive with less than 1.9 dollars (28 thousand rupiah) per day.
For this year, the chosen theme for International Women’s Day official is #BreakTheBias. The purpose of this campaign is to encourage women around the world to be confident in expressing their rights wherever they are.
Top Priority Issues About Women in 2022
Women’s issues from the early 20th century until now is still one of the issues that is continuously being fought for. The pandemic situation that has occurred in recent years seems to have significant impact on women. The World Health Organization (WHO) as a world-level organization is committed to improve women’s right and welfare by setting several priorities, including:
1. Provide a better response and recovery for COVID-19
Women are one of the groups affected by COVID-19. If there is a family member who is sick or affected by COVID-19, women have a large portion of responsibilities in caring for and taking care of them. This can have an impact on women's health conditions both physically and mentally. In addition, pregnant women were also known to be excluded from some vaccine trials and other medical procedures. Thus, access to health services and education for women needs attention.
2. Prevent and respond to violence against women
WHO noted an increasing trend of domestic violence against women by as much as 10-50% in many countries in the world. The pandemic situation that made people obligated to stay at home for quite a long time has several negative impacts. Economic pressures due to layoffs and psychological stress are contributing factors for domestic conflicts. Conflicts that are difficult to defuse can lead to violence and women have a high potential to become victims. In addition, access to external assistance and supporting system such as family members, friends, and communities becomes difficult to access due to limited mobility.
WHO then took various preventive and curative actions to respond to this issue. Synergy efforts from local to global levels continue to be improved.
3. Supporting women's leadership in the world of work
One of the main concerns about women is the issue of the gender gap in the work field. As many as 7 out of 10 health workers are women. However, if we look at leadership and strategic positions, only 1 in 4 people are women.
Another implication of this phenomenon is on pay gap. According to the Europe Union 2020, the average female workers received 13% less work wages than their male counterparts, with the highest gaps in Latvia at 22.3% and in Luxembourg at 0.7%. In Indonesia, female employees receive 23% less wages from men for the same position.
This phenomenon then encourages various parties, both community organizations and the government to advocate for women's rights to receive proper compensation and opportunities.
Event Women with Impact 2022
The CEO of Nalagenetics, Levana Sani, had the opportunity to be a speaker at the Women with Impact 2022 forum organized by East Ventures on March 8, 2022 yesterday. This forum aims to share perspectives, real experiences, and stories from various influential female figures. Melisa Irene (partner of East Ventures), Tamara Wu (CEO of Liberty Society), Carmen Yuen (General Partner of Vertex Ventures SE Asia and India), and Utari Octavianty (Co-Founder and Chief Sustainability Officer of Aruna) attended the forum.
On that occasion, Levana Sani said that women's issues need attention. He said, “In terms of health itself, there are many well-known examples where women receive different treatment and health care. This is because clinical trials are traditionally designed for white men in America. So, when we decided to work in a very specific field, known as genetic testing for drugs or pharmacogenetics, it is very important for us to understand how big the impact of gender differences in clinical trials is."
As a tangible contribution towards this issue, now Levana Sani and her team are trying to including women into consideration in carrying out various pharmacogenetic research projects at Nalagenetics. The goal is for women to get optimal access to medication, treatment, and other forms of health services.
International Women's Day is celebrated every year as a momentum to continue to voice women's rights which are still often ignored. Access to better health, education, and economic welfare for women are the ongoing priorities for putting future agenda. Awareness, concern, and synergy by every element of society in this issue will slowly but surely bring about significant changes.
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