International Women’s Day 2025

International Women’s Day (IWD), March 8, is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women, with the first IWD gathering taking place in 1911. As every year since 2018, IWD will be celebrated at the ASRC’s centre in Footscray, providing a platform for women seeking asylum to acknowledge and celebrate their strength, resilience and cultural diversity. 

The 2025 IWD theme is ‘Accelerate Action’, emphasising the importance of taking decisive steps worldwide to achieve gender equality, and addressing the systemic barriers and biases that women face in their personal and professional lives. For refugee women and women seeking asylum these barriers and biases can be exacerbated through restrictions on education and opportunity, discrimination, trauma, lack of access to healthcare and other basic needs, even once they reach safety in Australia.

ASRC is also one of the supporters of the More Voices, More Representation, a community-led campaign that looks at women’s representation in International Women’s Day celebrations in Australia, against the backdrop of increasingly antagonistic attitudes towards diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in corporate and political spheres. Read more about their annual survey findings, including how women’s feelings of inclusion or exclusion might impact their vote at the upcoming federal election here.

“This IWD I am thinking about how the Women’s Movement has changed the lives of millions of women, supporting them to live lives their mothers would not have dared to dream of. This progress is at risk across the globe now more than ever. We need to show up and get involved for our sisters around the world who are seeing their rights taken away at break-neck speed. IWD is a day to shine a light on how fragile our progress is and how we must stand together with women to protect the human rights of women and all genders.” – Anastasia Magriplis, Head of Humanitarian Operations and Resilience at ASRC