8 March – a day to mark “Women’s Rights and International Peace”
Sarah Stephan is the Project Manager for the project Open Doors that is focusing on gender equality, empowerment and participation in Azerbaijan. She is also a researcher whose interests include European and Public International Law, in particular post-conflict governance and multilevel governance in the European Union and beyond. Why women remain absent from the peace process in Armenia and Azerbaijan Mariehamn 7.3.2013 International Women’s Day, “celebrated” every year on 8 March, has long been a public holiday in the post-Soviet sphere. Originating in the labormovement of the early 20thcentury, in the Soviet Union Women’s Day was celebrated to honor the contribution of women to the communist cause, for women’s efforts in public and private spheres alike, as workers, soldiers, mothers and wives. However, in today’s post-Soviet countries International Women’s Day seems to have lost part of that spirit. While gender equality always remained subordinate to the communist cause and was never fully realized, many post-Soviet countries have witnesses a decline of gender equality since independence. In the South Caucasus countries today, only little attention seems to be paid to the International Women’s Day as it is marked by the UN since the mid-70s, namely as the “Day for Women’s Rights […]