International Women's Day becomes a global day of activism

Women, like a sea of red, marched, painted and performed art across the world on International Women's Day on Wednesday for equal rights.

Thousands of American women rallied against US President Donald Trump's administration, denouncing his policies on abortion and health care.

The gender pay gap was also one of the issues raised by women who took to the streets of several US cities, including LA and New York. US women who make up 47 percent of the civilian labour force are paid just four-fifths of their male counterparts' wages.

In Washington DC, demonstrators gathered at the US Labour Department to lodge their protest.

At least three US school districts, Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina, closed because of staff shortages after teachers requested the day off to participate in A Day Without a Woman which was designed to show the contribution women make to the economy and society as a whole.

The four women who organised A Day Without a Woman and the Women's March in Washington in January were arrested in New York after a large demonstration blocked traffic outside a Trump hotel.

TRT World's Jennifer Glasse attended the protests held in Washington DC.

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Women in Dublin gathered to call for the removal of the constitutional ban on abortion. They marched from the Garden of Remembrance in Parnell Square to Leinster House.

Across the Texas border, women in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico painted crosses on lamp posts in solemn remembrance of the hundreds of women who have gone missing or were murdered during the drug war there in recent years.

In Tbilisi, Georgia, women performed a piece titled the "Glass Ceiling." The activists simulated being trapped by the barely visible but powerful barrier that stands between women and workplace equality.

Around 40,000 protesters took to the streets of Madrid, calling for an end to domestic violence.

"Gender violence must end, equality must be attained and the 'glass ceiling' for women in business broken," Marta Garcia, a protester at the Madrid said.