Hundreds march for International Women's Day
CBC News | Posted: March 7, 2015 6:19 PM | Last Updated: March 8, 2015
Hundreds took to the street in downtown Toronto this afternoon — calling for pay equity, better child care and other changes during a march and rally one day ahead of International Women's Day.
"Women make up almost the majority of the population of this country, but why are our voices not heard properly?" said organizer Jenny Han. "We're saying enough is enough."
Participants also repeated calls for action on the more than 1,200 indigenous women and girls who have gone murdered or missing over the past three decades.
"We need more funding to lift aboriginal women out of the poverty that makes them more vulnerable," said Audrey Huntley, co-founder of the group No More Silence.
The march comes one day after Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne introduced a $41 million effort to end sexual violence and harassment in Ontario
The premier said the campaign's goal is to end the existing "culture of misogyny," which she says is deep-rooted in society.
Wynne on Saturday reiterated the need for action.
"The statistics, if we look at them are really very frightening," she told a crowd at a downtown church. "In Canada, one in three women will experience sexual violence in her life. One in three. As a woman, as a mother, as a grandmother and as the premier of the province I believe we must do something."
International Women's Day is on March 8, and has been celebrated around the world for more than a century.
Corrections:- We originally reported that Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne was expected to appear at the rally. She was not scheduled, and did not appear. March 7, 2015 9:02 PM