With people around the world celebrating International Women’s Day in various forms of orchestrated strikes to raise an awareness of the importance of women, locally the day was touted as a major success as the Department of Gender and Family Affairs celebrated the day with the signing of a mural outside of the House of Assembly yesterday.

Celebrating with the theme “Women In The Changing World of Work: Planet 50:50 By 2030”, Minister of Social Services Melanie Griffin, to which The Department of Gender and Family Affairs fall, explained the theme and the initiative undertaken by the department noting the importance of the day.

“International Women’s Day, I think is extremely important because it is designed by the United Nations (UN) to celebrate accomplishments and the achievements as well as the worth of women throughout the world.

“In The Bahamas is no different and so we would have joined them today in commemorating, particularly under this theme of women in the changing world of work.

“We are talking about 50:50, 2030 meaning that we are looking for 50:50 at least, leadership of women in politics and in business, throughout the world,” Mrs. Griffin said.

Mrs. Griffin noted that as it stands there is an imbalance of women and men in various categories globally thus making the effort of 50:50 one of the sustainable development goals.

“As we move forward by 2030, we want to see that percentage where Planet 50:50, meaning in the entire planet, we would like to be able to see the advancement of women at greater numbers than they are now,” Mrs. Griffin said.

However, Mrs. Griffin further noted that there have been tremendous strides made by women worldwide and especially in The Bahamas.

“Women have come a long way and in The Bahamas. Today, we celebrate the work of all those great women who have gone before, and I say great no matter how small their contribution was, I say we can call it great because it build the stairway to where we are today.

“It is our job, those of us who are here today to continue building those steps for us to move forward,” Mrs. Griffin said.

The International Women’s Day celebration for the Department of Gender and Family Affairs ended with a celebratory reception at the Choices Restaurant for The Women In Leadership and Decision Making Course, on the campus of University of The Bahamas last evening.