International Women's Day: How it's celebrated around the globe

A contemporary art exhibit is being held at the MISR gallery in Cairo, Egypt. The artwork by Nadine Hammam will “address the existing fears of a persistent patriarchal military dictatorship in the present Egyptian context,” according to the gallery’s Facebook page.
Honoring the day through arts is an approach used in the West Bank as well, where a series of billboard-sized photos are displayed throughout Ramallah.  Five female photographers’ work is displayed in the project “we are from here,” meant to raise awareness of gender issues, according to the exhibit’s website.
And in Morocco, IWD is cause for a night out on the town. Two telecommunications companies - Alcatel Lucent and Meditel – are giving out free movie tickets so that “all women can go to the cinema” for free on March 8 [though the press release notes (in French) that tickets are limited to female clients of the phone operators].
Progress Watch:
+ Four Middle East and North African (MENA) countries prohibit sexual harassment in the workplace, including Iraq, Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia. Laws outlawing domestic violence were recently passed in Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco, according to the UN.
– Female representation in the labor force in MENA is nearly one-third of that of men.  The UN estimates close to 26 percent of women are a part of the labor force.