If last Monday you forgot to send flowers to your wife, girlfriend, female work colleagues or some other women you know, do not be overly worried. It was only the 99th time International Women's Day was celebrated and no one makes a big fuss on such an anniversary. However, prepare yourself well for next year when the world will celebrate the first century of this commemoration.

A lot has been done to enhance respect for women, but an awful lot still has to be done. Read these shameful statistics or incidents:

It is estimated that girls and women 15 years of age and over account for two-thirds of the world's illiterate population. Studies show that three-quarters of those infected by HIV/AIDS are girls and women between the ages of 15 and 24.

Minors account for up to 50 per cent of the victims of human trafficking, of which approximately 70 per cent are women and girls. Women are the victims of several types of violence including female feticide, infanticide and abandonment.

Reuters, for example, has just released a feature about women in Afghanistan. The story shocks and terrifies at the same time. Women are forced into marriage even at the age of seven, 10 or 12. Many suffer violence at the hands of their husbands and in-laws. Some burn themselves, as this is considered to be the only way for them to escape this cruelty.

A lot has also been done in Malta. Great strides were made in the education of women, the growth of participation in social life, the removing of forms of discrimination, and the enacting of specific laws against domestic violence.

However, women are still vulnerable in several situations. For example, a culture that attributes marriage and family breakdown to women because they work is one of the main negative situations women still face in our country. Women still do not have their rightful place in the world of politics, in media representations and in top management positions in industry and the civil service.

While our society formally militates against gender discrimination, it faces a contradiction which causes women's situation to be made worse, and consequently, they continue to suffer in many parts of the world.

Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Vatican's permanent observer to the United Nations in New York, pointed this out when he recently addressed the 54th session of the Economic and Social Council's Commission on the Status of Women.

"Achieving equality between women and men in education, employment, legal protection and social and political rights is considered in the context of gender equality. Yet the evidence shows that the handling of this concept... is proving increasingly ideologically driven, and actually delays the true advancement of women. Moreover, in recent official documents there are interpretations of gender that dissolve every specificity and complementarity between men and women. These theories will not change the nature of things but certainly are already blurring and hindering any serious and timely advancement on the recognition of the inherent dignity and rights of women."

By blurring the rightful distinctions between men and women and ignoring their complementarity our society ends up by respecting neither men nor women. A few examples would suffice to prove what I want to say:

Motherhood is sometimes presented as an obstacle to the advancement of women. Those who voluntarily decide to stop working outside of the family to take care of children when they are still very young are looked at as people wasting their lives. And the promotion of so-called sexual and reproductive health and rights generally results in violence against unborn human life, which is detrimental to the integral needs of women and men within society.

The conclusion of Mgr Migliore's speech is, therefore, very valid and appropriate:

"Fifteen years ago, the Beijing Platform for Action proclaimed that women's human rights are an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of universal human rights. This is key not only to understanding the inherent dignity of women and girls but also to making this a concrete reality around the world."

joseph.borg@um.edu.mt