International Women's Day, March 8, marked by demonstrations

PARIS -- From Paris to Afghanistan, International Women's Day, March 8, 2008, is being marked by demonstrations demanding women's rights and equality and protesting violence against women worldwide, according to an article in Yahoo News.

In France a demonstration called attention to Ingrid Betancourt, the French-Colombian hostage of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), who was captured in February 2002 as she campaigned for the Colombian presidency. Her cause is in the news lately because of the recent summit (the Rio Group) which brought together the Presidents of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela to discuss Colombia's recent attack on the FARC within Ecuador.

In the summer of 2004, in the Champs de Mars near the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Keweenaw Now witnessed and photographed this demonstration calling attention to the capture of Franco-Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and demanding negotiations to end the violence in Colombia. Today, six years after her capture, Betancourt is still being held as a hostage by the FARC. (Keweenaw Now file photo © 2004 Michele Bourdieu)

Women in Baghdad rallied against violence and asked for equal social status with men, while in Italy women protested in favor of abortion rights.

The Yahoo article also mentions that President Hamid Karzai, president of Afghanistan, spoke against forced marriages -- which, according to the United Nations, affect up to 80 percent of Afghan women -- and against the Taliban threat to girls' education.

Read details in the article "International Women's Day protests highlight violence, inequality" on Yahoo News.