Mrs. Catherine Gonzi, the wife of the Prime Minister of Malta, delivering speech in the “Seminar about Women”, organised by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat Malta.
Mr Atif, Mrs Muscat, Respected speakers, Ladies and Gentleman
It is a pleasure for me to share with you this opportunity to take stock of women’s issues. I thank all the previous speakers for their extremely informative and enlightening interventions about women and their roles and relations from various perspectives.
We are marking a 100 year old quest for respect towards women, which is represented by Women’s Day – an international observance introduced at a time when women in America and in Europe were struggling to secure for themselves more civil and economic rights, and for a better quality of life.
At the time, social circumstances had rendered women to be considered as inferior and subordinate to men. Back then in the early 20th century, Governments embarked on a process to endorse women’s quest for recognition. This process – officiated 100 years ago, and which is still ongoing today- actually represents an issue which is as old as humankind, disguised in a myriad of representations.
As the previous speakers have so aptly referred, respect for women features strongly in the main religions, as it also does in mythology and in history.
Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat Malta 