Million Women Rise (MWR) is a women-only march and rally against violence against women, held annually in London on a Saturday close to International Women’s Day, 8 March. It is organised and led by global majority women, for ALL women. The march starts in Hyde Park and moves through Oxford Street in the famous West End shopping district, stopping traffic. In 2025 the route started in Duke St, and marched along Regent St. It is followed by a rally in Trafalgar Square, with survivors of violence speaking to the crowd.[1][2]
MWR has no corporate sponsors, and the organisers are grassroots activists without ties to large charities or NGOs.[3] It was founded in 2007 by campaigner and former outreach worker Sabrina Qureshi. She was motivated in part by her childhood experiences growing up on a multicultural London housing estate, where violence against women was often treated as normal and unremarkable. She was also inspired by women’s movements around the world, including women she met during a visit to Palestine and the DRC who continued their activism even amid danger and violence.[3]
Million Women Rise (MWR) believes that male violence against women and children is a global pandemic that devastates lives and threatens to undermine efforts to bring about sustainable development.
- “Nina Kelly: Making a Stand: Million Women Rise Against Domestic Violence”. Huffingtonpost.co.uk. 2 March 2012. Retrieved 14 October 2013.
- Qureshi, Sabrina (13 February 2015). “The police won’t attend our Million Women Rise rally – we will march on | Sabrina Qureshi”. The Guardian. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
- “MILLION WOMEN RISE”. MILLION WOMEN RISE. Retrieved 22 February 2016.