March 8 is International Women's Day. It is the 100th anniversary this year. I attended the International Women's Day 2010 UN Public Symposium, Equal rights, equal opportunities: Progress for all, Beijing plus 15: Gender equality development and peace.
It's been 15 years since the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women was held in Beijin, and 10 years since the Millennium Development Goals have been set. Therefore there was the special event in Tokyo. It started at 3:30 pm and lasted for more than 5 hours.
Opening video message was made by the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The Talk Sessions inviting UN goodwill ambassadors "Roles and situations of women and girls in developing countries" followed. Three goodwill ambassadors, Ms. Misako Konno (紺野美沙子) UNDP Goodwill Ambassador, Ms. Yuko Arimori (有森裕子), UNFPA Goodwill Ambassador, and Ms. Agnes Chan (アグネス・チャン), Ambassador of the Japan Committee for UNICEF talked their experiences in developing countries, which seemed terrible. There were a Keynote Speech by Ms. Kimie Iwata (岩田 喜美枝), executive vice president of Shiseido (資生堂) Co. Ltd. and Men's Panel Discussion. The closing remarks was made by Ms. Mizuho Fukushima (福島みずほ), the Minister of State for Gender Equality.
After the break, there was a Joint Session "Commemorating the International Women's Day" and from 7:00 pm there was a "Femmes @ Tokyo" event "Dialogues de Femmes" by three writers, two Japanese Ms. Yuko Tsushima (津島佑子) and Ms. Yuka Murayama (村山由佳) and one French Ms. Laure Adler. There were many different programs, but I was interested in the Talk Sessions and the Dialogues de Femmes most to hear the voices of many women active in the world.
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