Early in the morning on International Working Women’s Day, Burkina Faso President Ibrahim Traoré took to the streets of the capital of Ouagadougou to greet women of the Green Brigade who clean the city.
His message was clear: Women are the backbone. As thousands of people are internally displaced and/or killed, and as men go off to war against militant groups in the Sahelian state’s border regions, Traoré acknowledged women must feel the impact.
International Working Women’s Day became a commemoration and struggle during the 1983-87 revolution led by Captain Thomas Sankara. On this day, Sankara famously sent men to the markets to run errands for women, return to cook and perform other household tasks. They used the day as a launching pad for the widespread social change necessary to better integrate women into the revolutionary struggle and combat the double exploitation in their daily lives.
Now, every year, public and sometimes private workplaces are closed to celebrate women.
If International Working Women’s Day is a public holiday in your country, how is it honoured? And, if it is not, how do the masses commemorate the day? Let us know in the comments.