# Celebrations and protests in the US and around the world mark International Women’s Day

Women took to the streets of cities across Europe,  and elsewhere to mark International Women’s Day with demands for ending inequality and gender-based violence.

On the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city, Istanbul, a rally in Kadiköy saw members of dozens of women’s groups listen to speeches, dance and sing in the spring sunshine. The colorful protest was overseen by a large police presence, including officers in riot gear and a water cannon truck.





International Women’s Day march in Warsaw, Poland, on Saturday. Photograph: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto/Rex/Shutterstock

Critics have accused the government of overseeing restrictions on women’s rights and not doing enough to tackle violence against women.

The Turkish president in 2021 withdrew his country from a European treaty, dubbed the Istanbul Convention, that protects women from domestic violence. Turkey’s “We Will Stop Femicides” platform says 394 women were killed by men in 2024.

“There is bullying at work, pressure from husbands and fathers at home and pressure from patriarchal society. We demand that this pressure be reduced even further,” Yaz Gulgun, 52, said.





Women sing and dance during an International Women's Day celebration in Lagos, Nigeria, on 7 March 2025. Photograph: Sunday Alamba/AP

In many other European countries, women also protested against violence, for better access to gender-specific healthcare and for equal pay, among other issues.

In Madrid, protesters held up large hand-drawn pictures depicting Gisèle Pelicot, the woman who was drugged by her now ex-husband in France over the course of a decade so that she could be raped by dozens of men while unconscious. Pelicot has become a symbol for women all over Europe in the fight against sexual violence.

In the Nigerian capital of Lagos, thousands of women gathered at the Mobolaji Johnson stadium, dancing and signing and celebrating their womanhood. Many were dressed in purple, the traditional color of the women’s liberation movement.





A poster honoring Gisèle Pelicot, in Madrid, Spain, on 8 March 2025. Photograph: Susana Vera/Reuters

In , the women’s day celebrations had a more official tone, with honor guard soldiers presenting yellow tulips to girls and women during a celebration in St Petersburg.

In Berlin, the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, called for stronger efforts to achieve equality and warned against tendencies to roll back progress already made.

In the US, demonstrations popped up in cities including Washington DC, New York City and Los Angeles, with many protesters rallying against the Trump administration’s policies.





International Women’s Day march in Los Angeles on Saturday. Photograph: Zaydee Sanchez/Reuters

The marches, organized by the Women’s March feminist network, come seven weeks into Trump’s second term. Since returning to office, Trump has signed a string of executive actions that advocates say disproportionately affect women.

Some of these orders are geared toward  in the federal government, signed just hours after his inauguration. The next day, Trump rescinded a decades-old executive order that had barred government contractors from discriminating based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or national origin.

At least 300 protests were planned for Saturday across the country, according to the Women’s March website.

RefuseFascism.org, an organization in Oakland, California, working with Women’s March, invited members of its community to join the march on Saturday, outlining some of the actions they’re fighting against in a : “It is Trump blaming plane crashes on DEI. It is JD Vance denigrating women who don’t have children. And these towering misogynists have the audacity to claim their attacks on trans people are in the name of ‘protecting women’.”

_Coral Murphy Marcos contributed reporting_
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