The March for Gender Equality and Women’s Rights is being organized by UN Women in collaboration with the City of New York, NGO-CSW, the Working Group on Girls, the Man Up Campaign and the UN Women for Peace Association.

The march will take place on International Women’s Day (March 8) and commemorate the 20-year anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women and the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. This event will celebrate the achievements women and girls have made around the world since 1995. It will also be an opportunity to underscore the need for political commitment to accelerate action to achieve gender equality by 2030.

The March will start at the Dag Hammarskjold Plaza (47th street and 2nd avenue) at 2:30 pm and end at Times Square (42nd street and 7th avenue) at 5:00 p.m.

The march will be divided into three parts:

Part 1—A lively start at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza. The march will be flagged off by the UN Women Executive Director following a short program of 30 minutes. Eminent celebrities, a New York indigenous women’s group, and a girls’ dance troupe are on the programme.

Part 2—A 1.5-hour march from Dag Hammarskjold to Times Square. The march will be a celebration that will include singing, marching, raising slogans, and showing solidarity for gender equality and women’s rights. At the same time, the march will help point out the existing gaps and barriers to achieving gender equality.

Part 3—An evocative closing at Times Square. The 30-minute program will consist of raising a collective torch to showcase intergenerational partnership. The program will bring together Ambassador Gertrude Mongella, the UN Women Executive Director, the First Lady of New York, the UN Secretary General (TBD) and others. The program will conclude with a song and a call to achieve gender equality by 2030.

In terms of the choreography of the march, the participants will be divided into 12 blocks representing the 12 critical areas of concern in the Beijing +20 Platform for Action. These 12 blocks will be led by the first block that will represent the overall theme of Beijing+20 and Planet 50-50: Step It Up for Gender Equality – March for Gender Equality and Women’s Rights.

The 12 critical areas of concern are as follows:

1.      Women and the environment
2.      Women in power and decision-making
3.      The girl child
4.      Women and the economy
5.      Women and poverty
6.      Violence against women
7.      Human rights of women
8.      Education and training of women
9.      Institutional mechanisms for the advancement of women
10.  Women and health
11.  Women and the media
12.  Women and armed conflict

Individuals and organizations are encouraged to bring your messages to the event and messages and materials for campaigns regarding Beijing+20, gender equality and women and girls’ empowerment

Extensive outreach and mobilization is underway with an intention to bring between 10,000 and 20,000  people to march for gender equality. The last march of this magnitude for gender equality in New York City took place in the 1970s.

Join the march and spread the word far and wide using the hashtags #Beijing20 and #genderequalitymarch. You can also go to @UN_Women for coverage of the march.

Join WEDO at the March! 

WEDO will be marching with signs and banners in the first critical area on ‘Women and environment’, find us by the large Women for Climate Justice sign see below. We are looking for volunteers to help us woman the signs! If you would like to be a WEDO March Volunteer, please e-mail [email protected] by tomorrow.