Women across the world called for equal pay, reproductive rights, education, justice and decision-making jobs and celebrate progress toward female empowerment during events and demonstrations marking International Women’s Day on Sunday.
Officially recognized by the United Nations in 1977, International Women’s Day is commemorated in different ways and to varying degrees in places around the world. Protests are often political — and at times violent — rooted in women’s efforts to improve their rights as workers.
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Women shout slogans as they march during a protest marking the International Women's Day, in Istanbul, Turkey, Sunday, March 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
Women march during a protest marking the International Women's Day, in Istanbul, Turkey, Sunday, March 8, 2026. Placard reads in Turkish: "We fight against poverty, violence, and war!". (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
Women's right activists take part in a rally to mark International Women's Day, in Karachi, Pakistan, Sunday, March 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Ali Raza)
Women's right activists take part in a rally to mark International Women's Day, in Karachi, Pakistan, Sunday, March 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Ali Raza)
A woman holds up a placard during a protest marking the International Women's Day, in Istanbul, Turkey, Sunday, March 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
2026 marked the 115th year of International Women's Day. This years' theme was “Give to Gain,” with a focus on fundraising for organizations focused on women's issues and less tangible forms of giving such as teaching peers, celebrating women and “challenging discrimination.”
Women's rights activists shouted slogans during a protest in Istanbul, Turkey. In China and Russia, vendors sold flowers wrapped in pink and local workers in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, lifted fists and umbrellas as they celebrated.
International Women’s Day is a celebration — and a call to action — marked by demonstrations, mostly of women, around the world, ranging from combative protests to charity runs. Some celebrate the economic, social and political achievements of women, while others urge governments to guarantee equal pay, access to health care, justice for victims of gender-based violence and education for girls.
It is an official holiday in more than 20 countries, including Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Ukraine, Russia and Cuba, the only one in the Americas. In the United States, March is celebrated as Women’s History Month.
While the idea behind a women’s day originated in the U.S. with the American Socialist Party in 1909, it was a German feminist who pushed for a global commemoration during an international conference of socialist women held in 1910 in Copenhagen. The following year, events across Europe marked the day, and during World War I, women used it to protest the armed conflict, which lasted from 1914 to 1918.
International Women’s Day is observed on March 8 after a massive protest in Russia on Feb. 23, 1917, that led to the country’s eventual withdrawal from the war. At the time, Russia had not adopted the Gregorian calendar and still used the Julian calendar.
The U.N. began commemorating the holiday in 1975, which was International Women’s Year, and its General Assembly officially recognized the day two years later.
Roughly 20,000 people attended a march for International Women’s Day in Berlin. German news agency dpa reported Sunday that the crowd was double the amount police had expected. Speakers at the event decried violence against women in Germany, as well as gender discrimination.
In Brazil, Sunday’s marches for International Women’s Day served as a rallying cry against gender-based violence, fueled by the latest case to outrage the country involving the alleged gang rape of a 17-year-old girl in Copacabana.
The case in Rio de Janeiro’s famed, beachside neighborhood took place in January, but gained national traction this week when four suspects handed themselves over to authorities. At least 15 protests were planned across the country, with organizers calling for the defense of women’s lives and an end to femicide.
In Chile, tens of thousands of women marched in Santiago and other cities to demand women’s rights, an event that has taken on special significance this year in the lead-up to the inauguration of far-right candidate José Antonio Kast, who will assume the presidency Wednesday in what will represent the country’s most pronounced shift to the right since the end of a military dictatorship.
“With Kast taking office in three days and with everything that is happening internationally, the Yankee offensive against the peoples of Latin America, we feel that this year’s march shouldn’t be just another one,” Yamila Martínez, a 31-year-old warehouse worker, told The Associated Press.
In Spain, tens of thousands of women took to the streets in Spain’s major cities, calling for equality and an end to violence against women as well as calls for an end to war in the Middle East and in support of oppressed women in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
“Our struggle is together with the women, both Iranian and Afghan. In this struggle, we are together. And we will fight for our rights, and they also need to know that we support them from Afghanistan,” said Khadija Amin, an Afghan journalist, said at a march in Madrid.
Palestinian women in Gaza City reminisced about their lives before the war. The majority of them live starkly different lives — in tents that do little to protect them from winter rains and the scorching summer heat, and they spend hours every day in pursuit of basic necessities.
“We woke up at six to wait for the water trucks. We go to the charity kitchen and wait in line,” said Wisal Badawi, as she was joined by other women carrying jerrycans and empty pots and waiting for food and water. “The Palestinian woman is suffering.”
In Puyo, an Amazonian town in Ecuador, a march took place with members of various Indigenous groups, many wearing traditional clothes. Women said they were there to raise their voices about the degradation of the environment, and oil and gas expansion.
“Today is about reporting to the world about the violation of rights that us Indigenous women have to endure — specifically the rights to nature," said Ruth Peñafiel, 59, from the Kichwa community in the northern Amazon. “We want to live in a healthy environment and in harmony with the forest, so we are asking for respect and that public policies for nature are put in place.”
And in Peru, a 5-kilometer race in Lima drew some 7,500 participants to commemorate the day, while in the southern city of Cusco, banners were raised and drums resounded in a march with messages defending women’s lives. “Today I raise my voice so that tomorrow no one is missing,” one banner read.
Police in Pakistan’s capital briefly detained several women’s rights activists when they attempted to hold a rally in defiance of a government ban on public gatherings, officials and witnesses said. The detainees were later released.
Pakistan had imposed the ban on rallies over security reasons amid a surge in militant violence in the country. Organizers shared videos on social media showing some of the activists sitting inside a police vehicle in Islamabad.
In a statement, Aurat March, a network of women’s rights activists, said the participants had been peacefully exercising their right to protest. “We strongly condemn the arrests of Aurat March participants and organizers.”
Advocates organized by Women's March will rally outside of Zorro Ranch in Albuquerque, New Mexico on Sunday, where financier Jeffrey Epstein allegedly sexually abused and trafficked underage girls and young women.
Relatives of Virginia Giuffre, who accused Britain’s Prince Andrew and other influential men of sexually exploiting her as a teenager trafficked by Epstein, will speak at the event alongside other activists.
“This weekend, we are taking action because the same systems that shield powerful abusers at home are the ones perpetuating violence abroad," Rachel O’Leary Carmona, Executive Director of Women’s March, said in a statement. “The years-long cover-up and protection of Jeffrey Epstein’s allies and co-conspirators exposed a culture of impunity that tells survivors their pain is negotiable when powerful men are involved.”
Some say commemorating International Women’s Day is now more important than ever, as women have lost gains made in the last century, among them the 2022 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a nationwide right to abortion, which ended constitutional protections that had been in place nearly 50 years.
Women shout slogans as they march during a protest marking the International Women's Day, in Istanbul, Turkey, Sunday, March 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
Women march during a protest marking the International Women's Day, in Istanbul, Turkey, Sunday, March 8, 2026. Placard reads in Turkish: "We fight against poverty, violence, and war!". (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
Women's right activists take part in a rally to mark International Women's Day, in Karachi, Pakistan, Sunday, March 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Ali Raza)
Women's right activists take part in a rally to mark International Women's Day, in Karachi, Pakistan, Sunday, March 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Ali Raza)
A woman holds up a placard during a protest marking the International Women's Day, in Istanbul, Turkey, Sunday, March 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
Iran launched more attacks on Israel and Gulf countries Monday, hours after Iranian state TV said Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the country’s late supreme leader and long considered a contender, had been named his successor.
Iran’s powerful paramilitary Revolutionary Guard answers to the supreme leader and the younger Khamenei will have a central say in the war strategy.
Oil prices skyrocketed Monday, leading to more worries that higher energy costs will fuel inflation and lead to less spending by U.S. consumers, the main engine of the economy. Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index plunged as much as 7% in early Monday trading, while other Asian markets also tumbled.
Saudi Arabia sharpened its warnings to Iran, telling Tehran Monday it would be the “biggest loser” if it continues to attack Arab states. The Saudi statement came after a new drone attack apparently targeted its massive Shaybah oil field.
Here is the latest:
Around 70,000 Syrians have crossed the border from Lebanon “under duress in a rush to Syria because they were so afraid of what is happening in Lebanon,” Karolina Lindholm Billing, the representative of the U.N. refugee agency in Lebanon, said Monday.
Lebanon was at one point hosting more than 1 million Syrian refugees, but the numbers have declined, particularly since the ouster of former Syrian President Bashar Assad in December 2024. Today around 532,000 registered refugees remain, with potentially hundreds of thousands more believed to be unregistered.
The United States and Iran have offered sharply different accounts of the sinking of an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean.
Washington has rejected Tehran’s claim that the warship IRIS Dena was unarmed when it was sunk in a submarine attack near Sri Lankan waters on March 4.
In a statement Sunday on X, the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command called Iran’s assertion that the vessel was unarmed “false.”
Iranian officials say the vessel was operating in a noncombat role as it returned home after taking part in a naval exercise in India.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh said last week the warship was “unarmed.”
Israel said Monday it has carried out airstrikes in Beirut.
The Israeli army earlier Monday said it would operate against targets associated with the Hezbollah-linked financial institution al-Qard Al-Hasan. It repeated the warning to residents of Beirut’s Dahiyeh suburb to flee.
Israel says Hezbollah uses al-Qard al-Hasan to finance its military activities.
Smoke billowed over Beirut after the attacks. The first strike destroyed a building housing an office of al-Qard al-Hasan in the southern suburb of Chiyah.
Israel’s military targeted several branches of al-Qard al-Hasan in southern and eastern Lebanon last week.
During the last Israel-Hezbollah war in 2024, Israel’s military carried strikes that destroyed more than a dozen branches of al-Qard al-Hasan across Lebanon.
Emirati authorities have reported another missile attack in the capital, Abu Dhabi, urging people to remain in safe locations.
Israel has identified another launch on northern Israel shortly after a previous warning of an incoming missile attack from Iran on Monday.
Israel said in a new warning Monday that it has identified missiles launched from Iran toward northern and southern Israel.
Sirens sounded in Israel warning of a missile attack from Iran for the sixth time Monday.
Bangladesh on Monday closed all universities, bringing forward the break for Eid al-Fitr as part of emergency measures to conserve electricity during the conflict in the Middle East.
The South Asian country, which depends on imports for 95% of its energy requirements, already has experienced instances of panic buying. Car owners and drivers have struggled to collect fuel as shortages are reported.
The government has shut most fertilizer factories, redirecting available gas to power plants to avoid widespread outages.
Islam’s biggest festival is expected to be held either March 20 or 21, depending on the moon sighting, at the end of a month-long fasting ritual.
Energy Minister Iqbal Hasan Mahmud urged people to remain calm, saying Bangladesh has sufficient fuel stocks.
The capital of the United Arab Emirates came under Iranian attack Monday, with two people hurt by shrapnel from interceptions in Abu Dhabi, authorities said.
South Korea says it will cap oil prices for the first time since 1997 to stabilize soaring fuel costs driven by the war.
Kim Yong-beom, the presidential policy chief of staff, said in a briefing Monday that Seoul plans to introduce the caps sometime this week.
The government did not immediately provide details on how the caps would be structured and operated.
The move will help make fuel prices more predictable and prevent refineries and gas stations from raising prices “abnormally,” Kim said.
The Korea National Oil Corporation says it is holding several months’ worth of strategic oil reserves at nine storage facilities across South Korea, a stockpile that exceeds the International Energy Agency’s recommendation of 90 days.
South Korea last released its strategic reserves, which are used to address serious supply disruptions, in 2022 when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shocked global energy markets.
India’s foreign minister says two Indian mariners have been killed during the war.
Subrahmanyam Jaishankar confirmed the deaths in an address to India’s parliament Monday and said the victims were working on merchant shipping operating near the conflict zone.
One sailor was still missing, he said.
The minister did not give further details of the vessels involved.
“This ongoing conflict is an issue of particular concern for India,” Jaishankar said, explaining that nearly 10 million Indians live and work in Gulf countries.
The region also is central to India’s energy security and trade, accounting for nearly $200 billion annually in commerce, he said.
Jaishankar reiterated that India favors peace in the region and urged a return to dialogue and diplomacy.
“We advocate de-escalation, restraint and ensuring the safety of civilians,” he said.
Turkey has deployed six F-16 jets and air defense systems to the Turkish-Cypriot part of the divided island of Cyprus to bolster its security, the defense ministry said.
A ministry statement said Monday additional measures would be taken if deemed necessary.
A British air base on Cyprus’ southern coastline was hit by a drone last week.
Ankara maintains some 30,000 troops in northern Cyprus, which broke away from the Greek south in 1974. Turkey is the only country to recognize the northern administration.
Iran’s judiciary reiterated it can order the assets of “enemies” abroad seized in the country.
It made the announcement Monday on the judiciary’s Mizan news agency.
Reporters for Farsi-language media abroad have seen their assets seized over the years.
The report also said “any intelligence or espionage activity conducted” abroad for the Israeli or U.S. governments “could lead to the confiscation of all assets and even the death penalty.”
A barrage of drones was fired toward Saudi Arabia early Monday, hours after an attack killed two Bangladeshi nationals in the kingdom.
The Saudi Defense Ministry said it intercepted drones in the northern Jawf region, as well as the vast Shaybah oil field.
Late Sunday an attack in the central city of Kharj killed the two Bangladeshi nationals and wounded 12 others. All but one was from from Bangladesh.
As Iranian state television reported on the ascension of Mojtaba Khamenei as supreme leader, it referred to him as being wounded in war.
State TV on air described him as “janbaz,” or wounded by the enemy, in the “Ramadan war,” which is how media in Iran refer to the current conflict.
However, later an analyst on air suggested Khamenei’s wounding could have been during his service in the 1980s Iran-Iraq war.
The differing accounts could not be immediately reconciled.
Khamenei’s father and his wife were killed in the Feb. 28 Israeli airstrike in Tehran at the start of the war. Khamenei has yet to be seen since the war began. He was announced as Iran’s new supreme leader on Monday.
Bahrain again sounded an alarm over incoming fire from Iran on Monday.
The investigative group Bellingcat says its analysis of a newly released video “appears to contradict” U.S. President Donald Trump’s claim that Iran was responsible for an explosion at an Iranian school, which Iran’s state media said killed 165 people on Feb. 28.
The video shared by Bellingcat was a three-second clip released Sunday by the Iranian semi-official news agency. It shows a munition hitting a building, sending a dark plume of smoke into the air.
The Associated Press was not immediately able to authenticate the video.
Experts interviewed by the AP have deduced from satellite image analysis that the school was likely struck during a quick succession of bombs dropped on an adjacent IRGC base.
Neither U.S. central command nor the Israeli military immediately responded to requests for comment from the AP.
Israel’s military warned Monday of new incoming missile fire from Iran. Moments later, sirens sounded in parts of northern Israel.
Bahrain’s state oil company declared force majeure on Monday for its shipments after an Iranian attack set its refinery ablaze.
The state-run Bahrain News Agency carried the announcement of the force majeure, a legal maneuver that releases a company of its contractual obligations because of extraordinary circumstances.
It said the company’s operations “have been affected by the ongoing regional conflict in the Middle East and the recent attack on its refinery complex.”
It insisted local demand could be met.
Mourners carry the bodies of Hezbollah fighters who were killed by Israeli airstrikes during their funeral procession in Khraibeh village, eastern Lebanon, Sunday, March 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Israeli tanks are parked in a staging area in northern Israel near the border with Lebanon, Israel, Sunday, March 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
This image taken from video provided by Iran state TV shows Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of Iran's slain supreme leader, who has been named as the Islamic Republic's next ruler, authorities announced Monday, March 9, 2026. (Iran state TV via AP)
Flames rise from an oil storage facility south of the capital Tehran as strikes hit the city during the U.S.–Israel military campaign, Iran, Saturday, March 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
