Women's rights organisations from the Balkans are marking International Women’s Day, on March 8, with a series of rallies designed to raise awareness of discrimination, violence and unfair treatment.

Women's rights activists all over the Balkans will be leading other rights organisations and leftist groups at a series of rallies on Thursday, marking International Women’s Day and demanding better rights and more equal treatment.

Panel discussion on "The role of women in society, focus on the region of Mitrovica" was held at the Cultural Center in Zvecan, reports Radio Mitrovica Sever.

This event was opened by Mayor Vucina Jankovic, who said that the eighth of March was not a regular day, but the day when the loudest messages about women's rights can be heard from all sides, but that it should be discussed every day of the year.

The paper has published an editorial by the President of Kosovo, Atifete Jahjaga, writen for the International Women's Day:

Every woman of this country has a valuable history of sacrifice, resistance, faith and hope. Histories which we might have heard, which we might have shared with one another with pride, or which we have asked to be acted upon in order not to allow similar histories to occur ever again.

Below find the opinion piece by the Ambassador of the United Kingdom to Kosovo, Ruairi O’Connell, published today in Zeri.

8th March is celebrated internationally as women's day.

I have to admit, the first time I spent 8 March in Kosovo, I was surprised by the tradition. The day is not really celebrated in Britain, and I had not seen this practiced before.

But I am glad that it is marked in Kosovo.

This year's celebration of International Women's Day is the first within the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls are confidently asserted in that Agenda as intrinsic to progress.