Annie Lennox took place in a march on Sunday to mark International Woman’s Day.
The event was organized by CARE, and hundreds of people came out to listen to Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour’s Jane Garvey in conversation with Annie Lennox, Radio 1 DJ and feminist Gemma Cairney, founder of Everyday Sexism Laura Bates, and Sri Lankan equal rights campaigner Jayanthi Kuru Utumpala before Helen Pankhurst led the walk through London to the Southbank Centre.
“We’re raising awareness and taking action against one of the unnecessary gendered shackles blighting the lives of women and girls around the world – the gruelling chore of water collection, which in 2015 simply should not be holding girls back from education, and women from paid work,” said Helen Pankhurst, great-granddaughter of suffragette Emmeline. “With support from well-known celebrities and activists we will kick off Walk in Her Shoes in London on International Women’s Day. We are coming together in solidarity to celebrate progress made on women’s rights and to galvanize for the road ahead. We do so in the time honoured tradition of a march, walking shoulder to shoulder, as a visible manifestation of a global conscience. I’d urge everyone to come and join us.”
Sixty per cent of the world’s poorest people are women, many millions of whom walk more than six kilometres a day in search of water and firewood, carrying loads of up to 20kg. You can help change their world. Each year of schooling can boost a girl’s future earnings by 10-20 per cent, and children of educated mothers are 40 per cent more likely to live past their fifth birthday.
To watch the BBC’s interview with Annie Lennox at the event, click here.
