Intl Women's Day marked across the world

Calls to end forced marriage, domestic abuse and job discrimination marked International Women's Day on Saturday as demonstrators took to the streets worldwide.
The issues highlighted crossed a wide spectrum, including abortion rights in Italy, violence against women in Iraq and women hostages in Colombia. Nearly 100 years old, the day marks the worldwide struggle for equal rights for half the globe's population.Scores of women rallied outside a Baghdad hotel demanding an end to violence and equal social status with men.

"Stop neglecting women. Stop killing women. Stop creating widows," read a large banner that the women, from various ethnic and religious backgrounds, held at the Babylon Hotel in Baghdad's central Karrada neighbourhood. In Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai spoke out against forced marriages and said threats from a Taliban-led insurgency were keeping girls out of school.
"I call on religious leaders, tribal elders and particularly men: stop forcing your under-aged girls to marry, stop marrying them to old men," he said.
Up to 80 percent of Afghan women face forced marriage, and nearly two-thirds are married before the legal age of 16, according to the United Nations. Events were also planned in neighboring Pakistan, where "honor killings" of women and punishment gang-rapes have been widely reported.
Gatherings took place in India, Indonesia and China as activists pressed for an end to discrimination ranging from abortion of female foetuses to workplace bias.