Clara Zerkin, a representative of the Socialist Women’s Conference in Copenhagen, first proposed celebration of Women’s Day on March 8th in 1910. It commemorates a demonstration held on this day in 1857 in New York City by women garment workers protesting poor working conditions.

International Women’s Day symbolizes the quest for equality of the sexes and the recognition of women’s contribution to development and peace. The three-fold objective of equality, development and peace has been receiving increasing attention in recent years.

The General Assembly proclaimed 1975 as International Women’s Year. Later, the United Nations Decade for Women was observed during the years 1976 to 1985 with the aim of promoting equality development, and peace. At the conclusion of the decade a world conference was convened in Nairobi in 1985. The conference proposed strategies for overcoming obstacles to progress known as Forward-Looking Strategies for the Advancement of women in the year 2000. 1n 1995, the Third World Women’s Conference was held in Beijing to review progress in the previous decade and to set new goals and strategies for development and equality in the following decade. On the women’s rights front, a Commission on the Status of Women was established as a body of the Economic and Social Council in 1946. The Commission has the task of making recommendations on women’s rights.

The General Assembly’s first legal instrument dealing exclusively with women’s rights was the Convention on the Political Rights of Women, adopted in 1952. The Convention states that women shall have the same voting power as men, shall be able to hold public office, and exercise all public functions equally as done by men.

The 1957 Convention on the Nationality of Married Women provides that the nationality status of the husband, or a change in it, shall not automatically affect the nationality of the wife. A convention dealing with the marital status of women adopted in 1962 prohibits child marriage and requires free consent to marriage. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, adopted in 1979, established an International Committee to review the status of women and to report annually to the General Assembly.