Speaking at the 2017 International Women’s day celebration in Accra, Mrs Evita Joseph Asare, Chief Executive Officer of Evita Joseph admonished women to ensure that they enforced the change they so desired from their homes before spreading it out to the rest of the world.

She said globally, statistics were against women as 50 per cent of women compared to 76 per cent of their male counterparts were represented in the global labour force with majority of the women in the informal economy and concentrated in lower-paid jobs.

Mrs Asare said since the home was where both males and females socialised with unequal division of labour, especially experiences and exposure that reinforced gender disparity, the home should be where the change for gender parity begins.

“If the fundamentals are to change, we the women have to change,” she said and added that the bold change women were seeking would have to start from them. Mrs Georgina Fiagbenu, Senior Manager of Corporate Communications, MTN Ghana, said the company recognised and appreciated the efforts of women in development and as such, partnered WomanRising to acknowledge and celebrate women on the International Women’s Day

She said one powerful tool for women to elevate themselves from male chauvinism was for them to get education, be bold in whatever they did and not allow themselves to be relegated to the background.

Additionally, she asked women to take advantage of technological advancements to study, broaden their scope of knowledge and develop themselves to impact meaningfully to societies.   The International Women’s Day has, since 1911, been a global day for celebrating the social, economic, political and cultural achievements of women and is also a call to action for accelerating gender parity.

The annual International Women’s Day was first organised by a German Socialist and theorist Clara Zetkin with other delegates in March 1911.Since then, the day has been celebrated by women the world over to put forward the idea of advancing women’s suffrage to mark their enormous contribution to humanity.

The United Nations began celebrating the day on 8th March 1975 and has annually given focus to women’s status around the globe.