Tag Archives: Women

Fifteen dead in food aid stampede in Morocco: ministry

People gather at the place where 15 people were killed when a stampede broke out in the southwestern Moroccan town of Sidi Boulaalam as food aid was being distributed in a market, in Sidi Boullaalam, Morocco November 20, 2017.

By Zakia Abdennebi

RABAT (Reuters) – Fifteen people were killed and five more injured when a stampede broke out in a southwestern Moroccan town on Sunday as food aid was being distributed in a market, the Interior Ministry said.

A hospital source put the death toll at 18, adding that most victims were women who had been scrambling for food handed out by a rich man in the small coastal town of Sidi Boulaalam.

A local journalist said the donor had organised similar handouts before, but this year some 1,000 people arrived, storming an iron barrier under which several women were crushed.

King Mohammed ordered that the victims’ families be given any assistance they needed and the wounded treated at his cost, the ministry said in a statement, adding that a criminal investigation had been opened.

Last month, the king dismissed the ministers of education, planning and housing and health after an economic agency found “imbalances” in implementing a development plan to fight poverty in the northern Rif region.

The Rif saw numerous protests after a fishmonger was accidentally crushed to death in a garbage truck in October 2016 after a confrontation with police, and he became a symbol of the effects of corruption and official abuse.

In July, the king pardoned dozens of people arrested in the protests and accused local officials of stoking public anger by being too slow to implement development projects.

 

(Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Cynthia Osterman)

 

Hundreds join Hollywood #MeToo march against sexual abuse

People participate in a protest march for survivors of sexual assault and their supporters in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California U.S. November 12, 2017.

By Jane Ross and Laith Agha

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Hundreds of people marched in the heart of Hollywood on Sunday to support victims of sexual assault and harassment, inspired by a social media campaign that has portrayed such abuse as a pervasive feature of American life.

The #MeToo march and rally followed a relentless series of accusations by men and women who said they were victimized by high-powered figures in the entertainment industry. But marchers said they also represented men and women who had been sexually abused as children and in other situations.

“I’ve been sexually assaulted multiple times throughout my life,” said marcher Tara McNamarra, 21, of Los Angeles. “It’s affected me in every aspect of my life.”

She said the march was cleansing after years of not being taken seriously about having been abused.

Women made up a majority of the crowd, although men made a strong showing of support.

Steven Murphy, 51, of Los Angeles, said he regularly witnessed sexual harassment while working as an accountant in the healthcare industry.

“I’ve had personal experiences of friends, of co-workers who were harassed, and nothing ever came of it,” Murphy said. “They were made out to be the guilty ones. They were pressured and harassed by the company for speaking out against assault and sexual harassment in the workplace.”

The marchers started at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue, walking along the noted “Walk of Fame” until they reached the Los Angeles headquarters of news network CNN at Sunset and Cahuenga Boulevards.

Along the way, participants noted the stars of actors and producers accused of sexual harassment.

The allegations have inspired an online campaign, tagged #MeToo, that has encouraged men and women in all walks of life to reveal their own experiences with sexual harassment and assault, often years after they occurred.

Among the most recent allegations, five women detailed sexual misconduct accusations against Emmy-winning comedian Louis C.K. in The New York Times on Thursday. He admitted to the misconduct alleged against him in a statement on Friday and apologized for his actions.

More than 50 women have said that Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein sexually harassed or assaulted them over the past three decades. Weinstein has denied having non-consensual sex with anyone. Reuters has been unable to independently confirm any of the allegations.

Earlier this month, actor Kevin Spacey apologized to actor Anthony Rapp, who had accused him of trying to seduce him in 1986 when Rapp was 14. Spacey’s representatives said later he was seeking treatment.

Eight current and former employees of the Netflix TV show “House of Cards,” who were not identified, also have accused Spacey, the star of the show, of sexual misconduct, CNN has reported.

 

 

(Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles and Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, Calif.; Editing by Peter Cooney)

 

A house divided: How Saudi Crown Prince purged royal family rivals

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman looks on as he meets with French President Emmanuel Macron in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, November 9, 2017. Saudi Press

By Samia Nakhoul, Angus McDowall and Stephen Kalin

BEIRUT/RIYADH (Reuters) – The first hint that something was amiss came in a letter.

On Saturday Nov. 4, guests at Riyadh’s Ritz Carlton were notified by the opulent hotel that: “Due to unforeseen booking by local authorities which requires an elevated level of security, we are unable to accommodate guests … until normal operations are restored.”

The purge was already under way. Within hours security forces had rounded up dozens of members of Saudi Arabia’s political and business elite, mostly in the capital and the coastal city of Jeddah. Among them were 11 princes as well as ministers and wealthy tycoons.

Some were invited to meetings where they were detained. Others were arrested at their homes and flown to Riyadh or driven to the Ritz Carlton, which has been turned into a temporary prison.

The detainees were allowed a single, brief phone call home, a person familiar with the arrests told Reuters.

“They don’t receive calls and are kept under tight security. No one can go in or out,” the insider said. “It is obvious that there was a lot of preparation for it.”

The purge was ordered by 32-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Officially next in line to the throne to his father, King Salman, he is now in effect running the country which he has said he will transform into a modern state.

To do that – and in an attempt to shore up his own power – he has decided to go after the Saudi elite, including some members of the royal family, on accusations such as taking bribes and inflating the cost of business projects. Those arrested could not be reached for comment.

At stake is political stability in the world’s largest oil producer. The Crown Prince’s ability to rule unchallenged depends on whether the purge is successful.

The Crown Prince believes that unless the country changes, the economy will sink into a crisis that could fan unrest. That could threaten the royal family and weaken the country in its regional rivalry with Iran.

THE “CORRUPTION STICK”

Prince Mohammed decided to move on his family, the person familiar with events said, when he realized more relatives opposed him becoming king than he had thought.

“The signal was that anyone wavering in their support should watch out,” said the person familiar with the events. “The whole idea of the anti-corruption campaign was targeted toward the family. The rest is window dressing.”

King Salman said the purge was in response to “exploitation by some of the weak souls who have put their own interests above the public interest, in order to, illicitly, accrue money”. Insiders said the accusations were based on evidence gathered by the intelligence service.

Government backers have rejected suggestions that the campaign is really about eliminating political enemies. There was no immediate comment from the royal court on this story.

Among those now holed up at the Ritz Carlton hotel is Prince Miteb bin Abdullah, who is head of the powerful National Guard and Prince Mohammed’s cousin.

Miteb was in his farm house in Riyadh when he was called to a meeting with the Crown Prince. Such an invitation, even at night, would not be unusual for a senior official and would not have aroused suspicion.

“He went to the meeting and never came back,” said a second insider who has connections to some of those who were detained.

Others held include Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who is chairman of international investment firm Kingdom Holding and a cousin of Prince Mohammed, and Prince Turki bin Abdullah, former governor of Riyadh province and a son of the late King Abdullah.

Some royal watchers said tensions were laid bare during family meetings over the summer. One insider said it was widely known to Prince Mohammed that some of the powerful royals, including Miteb, were resentful about his elevation.

Prince Mohammed, who is widely known in Saudi Arabia by his initials MbS, had said openly in interviews that he would investigate the kingdom’s endemic corruption and would not hesitate to go after top officials.

The vehicle was an anti-corruption committee created by King Salman, and announced on Nov. 4. The king put the Crown Prince in charge, adding another power to the many he has been given in the past three years.

Saudi authorities have questioned 208 people in the anti-corruption investigation and estimate at least $100 billion has been stolen through graft, the attorney-general said on Thursday. The head of the committee said investigators had been collecting evidence for three years.

By launching a war on corruption, the prince has combined a popular cause with the elimination of an obstacle to acceding to the throne.

“MbS used the corruption stick which can reach any one of them,” said Jamal Khashoggi, a former adviser to Prince Turki al-Faisal, intelligence chief from 1979 to 2001. “For the first time we Saudis see princes being tried for their corruption.”

But Khashoggi, who lives in the United States, said Prince Mohammed was being selective in his purge.

“I believe MbS is a nationalist who loves his country and wants it to be the strongest but his problem is that he wants to rule alone,” he said.

 

DE FACTO RULER

Prince Mohammed was appointed defense minister in 2015 when King Salman became monarch. In June, the King named him heir to the throne, pushing aside his older cousin Mohammed bin Nayef, a veteran head of the security apparatus. The royal family acquiesced and by September the Crown Prince had rounded up and jailed religious and intellectual opponents.

The latest detentions are intended to help him push through reforms that promise the greatest change since the reign of King Abdulaziz, founder of the current Saudi state in the 1930s.

That state has rested on an enduring accommodation between the royal family and the Wahhabist clerics who control the hardline version of Islam that originated in Saudi Arabia.

The ruling family promised to give Saudis comfortable lives and a share of the country’s oil wealth. In return, their subjects have offered political submission and promised to follow the country’s strict religious and social codes.

King Abdulaziz, who was also known as Ibn Saud, died in 1953. Since then, Saudi Arabia has been run by the king and below him there has been a group of princes, none of them strong enough to impose his will against the wishes of the others.

Decisions have mostly come through consensus. That arrangement has meant social and political change has been glacial although it has also kept the kingdom stable.

But in moves that position Prince Mohammed as the new Ibn Saud, the Crown Prince is tearing down pillars of rule that had been eroding under the weight of population growth and low oil prices.

Consensus has been replaced by what critics say is one-man rule, opposed by some princes although they would not risk saying so in public.

In the past few decades, every Saudi king had one or two of his brothers, sons or nephews by his side advising and sharing in governance. But Prince Mohammed has not appointed any of his brothers or other close family to top positions, instead relying on a team of advisers — mainly Saudis though some are U.S.- or British-trained.

King Salman, 82, still has the last word on everything. But he has delegated the running of the kingdom’s military, security, economic, foreign and social affairs to Prince Mohammed. There has been speculation for months, denied by court officials, that the king will soon abdicate the throne to MbS.

Even the Crown Prince’s age is remarkable. The last three kings have reached the throne aged 61, 80 and 79. Prince Mohammed is effectively in charge at 32.

 

NO GUARANTEE OF SUCCESS

Prince Mohammed says he offers a new social contract: A state that functions better than the rigid bureaucracy of the past, opportunities to have fun and an economy that will create jobs that can last, whatever happens in oil markets.

In September he announced that Saudi women will be given the right to drive. Just three weeks ago, during a conference for investors at the same Ritz Carlton that now houses the targets of his purge, he unveiled a plan for a $500-billion futuristic city where sexes could mingle and robots outnumber humans.

The prince has also drawn up a blueprint to wean Saudi Arabia off its dependence on oil and its subjects off state subsidies and government jobs. The public listing of national oil company Saudi Aramco, planned next year, is its centerpiece.

There are no guarantees the prince’s ambitions will succeed.

Even some admirers ask whether his reach exceeds his grasp. His top-down approach, brooking no opposition, could scare off investors wanting assurances about rule of law and security. Without huge investor support, he will struggle to meet the aspirations of Saudi youth.

War in Yemen, a dispute with the Gulf emirate of Qatar and growing tension with Iran is a concern to investors too.

It should help that Prince Mohammed, following the example of Ibn Saud, sees the importance of forging a special bond with the United States.

During a visit to Saudi Arabia in May, U.S. President Donald Trump urged Riyadh to lead an alliance against Iran and its attempt to cut a Shi’ite axis through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

Soon afterwards, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates blockaded Qatar, accusing its ruling Al Thani dynasty of supporting Iran and Islamist terrorism. Trump gave his backing. After the arrests of the past week, Trump tweeted support, saying those arrested had been “milking their country for years”.

One insider close to the royal family said the National Guard was unlikely to react strongly to Miteb’s removal. He said there had been no resistance to the ousting of Mohammed bin Nayef at the interior ministry and the National Guard would be no different.

 

(Additional reporting by Dasha Afanasieva, Editing by Timothy Heritage)

 

Saudi man arrested after threatening women drivers

Female driver Azza Al Shmasani alights from her car after driving in defiance of the ban in Riyadh, June 2011. REUTERS/Fahad Shadeed

KHOBAR, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) – A Saudi man was arrested for allegedly threatening to attack women drivers, the Interior Ministry said on Friday, following a royal decree that ends a ban on women driving in the kingdom.

Many Saudis welcomed Tuesday’s announcement by King Salman lifting the ban by next year, but some expressed confusion or outrage after the reversal of a policy that has been backed for decades by prominent clerics.

The ministry said on Twitter that police in the kingdom’s Eastern Province had arrested the suspect, who was not identified, and referred him to the public prosecutor.

“I swear to God, any woman whose car breaks down – I will burn her and her car,” said a man wearing a traditional white robe who appeared in a short video distributed online earlier in the week.

Reuters could not independently verify the authenticity of the video.

Saudi media, including the Arabic-language Okaz newspaper, quoted the Eastern Province’s police spokesman as saying the man in custody was in his 20s and that the arrest had been ordered by its governor.

Separately, Okaz reported late on Thursday that authorities directed the interior minister to prepare an anti-harassment law within 60 days.

The directions cited “the danger posed by harassment …and its contradiction with the values of Islam”.

Saudi authorities have in the past taken a broad view of sexual harassment, including attempts by men to get to know unrelated women by asking to exchange phone numbers or commenting on their beauty.

In a country where gender segregation has been strictly enforced for decades in keeping with the austere Wahhabi form of Sunni Islam, the end of the driving ban means women will have more contact with unrelated men, such as fellow drivers and traffic police.

The ban is a conservative tradition that limits women’s mobility and has been seen by rights activists as an emblem of their suppression. Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that still bans women from driving.

(Writing by Reem Shamseddine and Stephen Kalin; editing by John Stonestreet)

Philippine army says taking fire from women, children in Marawi battle

Smoke billows from a burning building as government troops continue their assault on its 105th day of clearing operations against pro-IS militants who have seized control of large parts of Marawi city, southern Philippines September 4, 2017.

By Manuel Mogato

MARAWI CITY, Philippines (Reuters) – Philippine troops fighting Islamic State-linked rebels in a southern city have encountered armed resistance from women and children, the military said on Monday, as troops make a final push to end a conflict that has raged for more than 100 days.

Ground forces were braced for higher casualties amid fierce fighting in Marawi City on the island of Mindanao, where the field of battle has shrank to a small area in a commercial heart infested with snipers, and littered with booby traps.

“We are now in the final phase of our operations and we are expecting more intense and bloody fighting. We may suffer heavier casualties as the enemy becomes more desperate,” Lieutenant General Carlito Galvez, who heads the military in Western Mindanao, told reporters.

He said the number of fighters was diminishing and a small number of women and children, most likely family members of the rebels, were now engaged in combat.

“Our troops in the field are seeing women and children shooting at our troops so that’s why it seems they are not running out of fighters.”

More than 800 people have been killed in the battle, most of them insurgents, since May 23 when the militants occupied large parts of the predominantly Muslim town.

The battle is the biggest security challenge in years for the mostly Catholic Philippines, even though it has a long history of Muslim separatist rebellion in Mindanao, an island of 22 million people that has been placed under martial law until the end of the year.

The protracted clashes and resilience of the rebels has fanned fears that Philippine groups loyal to Islamic State, and with ties to Indonesian and Malaysian militants, have formed an alliance that is well-organized, funded and armed, and serious about carving out its own territory in Mindanao.

Citing information provided by four hostages who had escaped from the rebels, Galvez said there were some 56 Christian hostages – most of them women – and about 80 male residents may have been forced to take up arms and fight the military.

The fighting was concentrated in an area around a mosque about a quarter of a square kilometer. He said soldiers were taking control of an average 35 buildings a day and at that rate, it could be three weeks before the city was under government control.

 

AIR STRIKES

Fighting in Marawi was intense on Monday, with heavy gunfire and explosions ringing out across the picturesque, lakeside town, the heart of which has been devastated by near-daily government air strikes.

Helicopters circled above to provide air cover for ground troops as fighting raged, with bursts of smoke rising above the skyline as bombs landed on rebel positions.

Galvez said intelligence showed the rebels’ military commander, Abdullah Maute, may have been killed last month in an air strike.

Postings on Facebook and chatter over the past two days on Telegram, a messaging application used by Islamic State and its sympathizers, had carried tributes to Abdullah, referring to him by one of his pseudonyms, he said.

“There is no 100 percent confirmation until we see his cadaver but this is enough to presume he died already,” he said.

The military has contradictory statements about the status of the rebel leaders over the past few months.

Abdullah Maute and brother Omarkhayam are the Middle East-educated leaders of a militant clan known as the Maute group that has gained notoriety in the past two years due to its ability to engage the army for long periods.

Under the name Dawla Islamiya, the Maute group has formed an alliance with Isnilon Hapilon, a leader of a pro-Islamic State faction of another group, Abu Sayyaf.

Galvez said the army’s intelligence indicated both Omarkhayam and Hapilon, Islamic State’s anointed “emir” in Southeast Asia, were still in the Marawi battle.

 

 

 

(Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Robert Birsel)

 

Food poisoning kills woman and child, hits hundreds at Iraqi camp

ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – A woman and a child died and hundreds fell ill in a mass outbreak of food poisoning at a camp for displaced people east of the Iraqi city of Mosul, officials said.

More than 300 people were hospitalized after breaking their Ramadan fast with an iftar meal on Monday night, aid groups told Reuters.

Many started vomiting and some fainted after eating rice, chicken, yogurt and soup, said Iraqi lawmaker Zahed Khatoun, a member of the Iraqi parliament’s committee for displaced people.

“It is tragic that this happened to people who have gone through so much,” said Andrej Mahecic, from the U.N.’s refugee agency UNHCR, which runs the camp and 12 others in the war-torn area with Iraqi authorities.

Many of the camp residents had fled fighting around Mosul as Iraqi government forces and their allies press an offensive to push Islamic State militants out of the northern city.

The International Organization for Migration said a Qatari aid group had paid a local restaurant to provide the food for the meal, though that was not confirmed by other agencies.

“I don’t know the name of the restaurant, but that’s what our person on the site is reporting today,” IOM spokesman Joel Millman said in Geneva.

“We are told 312 were hospitalized … one child and one adult woman we’re told died,” he added.

The camp in al-Khazer, on the road linking Mosul and Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish region, houses 6,300 people, the UNHCR said.

About 800,000 people, more than a third of the pre-war population of Mosul, have already fled the city, seeking refuge with friends and relatives or in camps.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli in Erbil and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

World War Two Rosies celebrated on U.S. day of recognition

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel (L) laughs with, (L-R) Marian Wynn, Agnes Moore, Marian Sousa and Phyllis Gould, women who worked during World War II, at the Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia, U.S., March 31, 2014. Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo/DOD/Handout via REUTERS

By Lisa Fernandez

RICHMOND, Calif. (Reuters) – They welded pipes. They drew blueprints. And, of course, they fastened munitions and machine parts together with rivets.

Now, seven decades after World War Two ended, a surviving handful of the women who marched into factories and shipyards, redefining workplace gender roles to help keep America’s military assembly lines running, were honored on Tuesday in the country’s first official National Rosie the Riveter Day.

Eleven Rosies, all in their 90s, were feted with speeches and a U.S. Senate resolution at the Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park, which opened in 2000 just north of San Francisco in Richmond, California.

“Without these amazing ladies, we wouldn’t have won the war,” Kelli English, a park interpreter told a news conference on Tuesday.

The women wore red, polka-dotted blouses and were treated to the planting of a rose bush at the park’s museum in their honor.

“Well it’s about time,” honoree Marian Sousa, 91, said in an interview ahead of the ceremony. “It shows that women are not only capable now, but they were capable then.”

Sousa, a resident of El Sobrante, California, worked as a “draftsman” creating blueprints for warships at the Kaiser Shipyard during the 1940s.

Her sister, Phyllis Gould, 95, and fellow Rosie worker Anna “Mae” Krier, 91, of Levittown, Pennsylvania, led the campaign pushing for a national day of recognition for the last few years.

“This is big,” Gould said in an interview on Monday.

Gould, who worked as a Navy-certified welder at the Kaiser-Richmond shipyards during the war, said it irks her that her slice of history is often overlooked.

Krier flew to Washington for a separate but related event attended by Senator Bob Casey, of Pennsylvania, a chief sponsor of the Rosie resolution, and other members of Congress.

Facing a labor shortage as many able-bodied males joined the U.S. Armed Forces between 1940 and 1945, America’s industrial arsenal turned to women to help fill jobs previously reserved strictly for men to produce ships, planes, munitions and other war supplies.

The share of U.S. jobs occupied by women grew from 27 percent to 37 percent during the war years, with nearly one in four married women working outside the home by 1945, according to the National Park Service.

It is unclear how many Rosies are still living today.

The Senate resolution pays tribute to 16 million women it says worked or volunteered for the U.S. war effort, including many who toiled for the American Red Cross, hospitals, rationing boards and other non-factory settings.

The phenomenon was captured in the iconic “We Can Do It!” posters from the era, picturing a determined-looking woman in blue factory togs, her hair swept back in a red scarf, rolling up a sleeve to show off her biceps.

Marian Wynn, 91, a former welder now living in Fairfield, California, agreed the honor was long overdue.

“I think we deserve it,” she said.

(Additional reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Leslie Adler and Andrew Hay)

Israel’s women combat soldiers on frontline of battle for equality

A female Israeli soldier from the Haraam artillery battalion takes part in a training session in Krav Maga, an Israeli self-defence technique, at a military base in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights March 1, 2017. REUTERS/Nir Elias

By Yuval Ben-David

ISRAELI MILITARY BASE, Golan Heights(Reuters) – Not far from the Syrian border, two Israeli soldiers – a man and a woman – faced off in a training session of Krav Maga, an Israeli self-defense technique.

“I want you to be aggressive, give him the fight of his life,” physical education officer Lotem Stapleton urged the woman, a soldier in the Haraam artillery battalion, the Israeli military’s longest-running mixed-gender combat battalion.

As the world marks International Women’s Day on Wednesday, whose theme this year focuses on “women in the changing world of work”, the Israeli military says it is ahead of the curve in providing combat roles for female soldiers.

At an army base – which under military censorship rules could not be identified – in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, Stapleton shouted encouragement at a pack of 13 soldiers who confronted a stream of “enemy combatants” in a training circuit.

“Today, 85 percent of (combat) positions are open to women. We are also talking about opening more and more positions,” Stapleton said.

The Haraam battalion began accepting women in 2000. Overall, female soldiers now make up 7 percent of the fighting ranks in the Israeli military, where men and women are conscripted at the age of 18.

Men serve for three years and women for two. Israel’s Arab citizens and ultra-Orthodox Jewish community are largely exempted from military service.

“I think that the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) is very advanced by giving women equal opportunities,” Lieutenant-Colonel Oshrat Bachar, an adviser to the office of the chief of staff on gender issues, told Reuters at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv.

“I believe that we are much more advanced than other armies in the world because (service) is mandatory and of course because we believe in equal rights,” she said.

Rachel Fenta, a female combatant in the Haraam battalion, said she spent a year sitting at a desk before she became determined to join a fighting unit.

“I wanted to test my limits,” she said.

Matan Paull, a commanding officer in the battalion, said female combatants were generally more creative and mentally flexible than their male counterparts. But he said the women tended to get injured more easily.

Mai Ofir, another female member of the unit, would agree.

“Our bodies aren’t built the same,” she said. “But just as a guy can shoot a rocket, so can a woman.”

(Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Alison Williams)

Women in U.S. plan to stay off the job, rally in anti-Trump protests

People listen to speakers in the rain at a rally for International Women's Day in Los Angeles, California, U.S., March 5, 2017. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

By Peter A Szekely

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Women in the United States plan to use International Women’s Day on Wednesday to stay off the job and stage demonstrations across the country in an effort to seize on the momentum built from the massive marches held a day after President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

On “A Day Without a Woman,” those who are able to do so will stay away from work or school, much as immigrants did on Feb. 16 to protest Trump’s immigration policies.

All are part of the series of anti-Trump demonstrations that have taken place since the day after his Nov. 8 election.

Objectives of Wednesday’s events include calling attention to the gender pay gap in which women trail men, and deregulating reproductive rights.

“For years and years, March 8 has been International Women’s Day, and it has been a happy, happy day, which is fine,” said Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization for Women. “But the political climate that we find ourselves in right now requires us to have political power.”

Demonstrations will target a Trump “gag order” that bars foreign health providers receiving U.S. funds from raising abortion as an option, O’Neill said.

Early Wednesday morning, Trump urged others via his personal Twitter account to join him in honoring the critical role of women in America and around the world.

“I have tremendous respect for women and the many roles they serve that are vital to the fabric of our society and our economy,” the Republican president wrote (@realDonaldTrump).

Trump has been heavily criticized for his inflammatory comments when discussing women, including his boast in a 2005 video about grabbing women by the genitals, and referring to Democratic rival Hillary Clinton as a “nasty woman” during a presidential debate.

American women on average earn 79 cents for every $1 that men make, and African-American and Latina women make even less, O’Neill said. Since women account for two-thirds of all minimum wage workers, lifting the hourly wage would significantly narrow the pay gap, she said.

The minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 at the federal level since 2009, although it is higher in many states.

Organizers are attempting to repeat tactics from the Jan. 21 women’s march on Washington and other cities that came together largely through social media.

Women make up 47 percent of the U.S. civilian labor force. If all of them stayed out of work for the day, it would knock almost $21 billion of the country’s gross domestic product, the liberal leaning Center for American Progress estimated.

Organizers, however, realize that many women lack the motivation or cannot afford to take a day off and are urging women to limit their shopping to female-owned businesses or to wear red.

Several schools, including at least two sizeable school districts in Virginia and North Carolina, have canceled classes because a large number of teachers requested the day off.

Rallies are planned in cities across the country, including Washington, New York, Atlanta, St. Petersburg, Florida, Chicago, San Francisco and Berkeley, California.

(Reporting by Peter Szekely; Editing by Daniel Trotta and Lisa Shumaker)

Some U.S. schools to close Wednesday as women request day off to protest

(Reuters) – At least two U.S. school districts have announced plans to close on Wednesday in anticipation of staff shortages for the nationwide “Day Without A Woman” strike.

The one-day protest, which is being held in conjunction with International Women’s Day, is intended to draw attention to the plight of women in the workplace who on average are paid less than men.

The protest is already affecting dozens of schools, which are heavily staffed by women. The strike organizers include some of the planners of the Jan. 21 women’s march on Washington and other U.S. cities.

In Alexandria, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C., Superintendent of Schools Alvin Crawley said classes for the entire district, which serves more than 15,000 students, would be canceled on Wednesday after 300 teachers and other staff members asked to have the day off.

“The decision is based solely on our ability to provide sufficient staff to cover all our classrooms, and the impact of high staff absenteeism on student safety and delivery of instruction,” Crawley said in an announcement.

Also canceling classes for the day are Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools in North Carolina, where officials anticipated that 400 to 2,000 staffers would not show up for work. The district, which encompasses 21 schools, said absences on a typical day number around 100 staffers, or 5 percent of its workforce.

The school district stressed that the decision to close was based on student safety and was not meant as a political statement.

(Reporting by Peter Szekely in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler)