women have made to achieve

For several decades each March, the efforts that women have made to achieve equality, justice, peace and development have been commemorated. The Symposium that calls us today is part of that recognition. The date was chosen to honor the memory and the testimony of struggle of a group of women who Keto Max Burn, with great fortitude, occupied in 1857 the textile factory where they worked in the city of New York to demand equal wages and a ten-hour day of work. The response of the owners to this request was to provoke the fire of the occupied plant where the 129 strikers died.

While the original motivation for this day was the growing participation of women in the labor market, its scope has extended to the struggle of women for their rights in many other areas. The Organization of the United Nations, as the most important multilateral forum, favored the adhesion of many countries to the celebration of this day and invited all member countries to recognize the multiple contributions of women to their society and to promote awareness of the feminine situation and its struggles to live in a world with less violence and discrimination and greater equality of opportunities.