By Lilian Chatterjee
High Commissioner of Canada to Guyana
The Government of Canada sees March 8th, or International Women’s Day, as an opportunity to celebrate what women have achieved and the progress we have made globally on gender equality.
It is also a time to reflect on how much more we have to do. Women and girls are still held back in so many ways all over the world. They are disproportionately affected by diseases like HIV/AIDS. They are subject to abuses like child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation and cutting. 650 million women and girls in the world today were married before they turned 18 and 214 million women and adolescent girls want access to contraception, but do not have it.
