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On International Women’s Day, 4 Ways Women Changed The World

The millions of Indian women who formed a 385-mile “wall” of protest

The demonstration was planned to create awareness of gender equality — and to protest a religious ban that prevented women of menstruating age from entering one of the country’s sacred Hindu temples even after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of their entry on Sept. 28 last year.

Photo AFP/Getty Images

The women who dare to bicycle in Pakistan

Zulekha Dawood organizes a weekly bike ride for women and girls in Karachi. She had previously run a girls boxing club and saw some boys on bikes nearby. “If they can ride,” Dawood thought, “why shouldn’t we?”

Photo Diaa Hadid/NPR

The teenage sisters who said “bye bye” to plastic bags in Bali

Five years ago, two teenage sisters decided to do something about the plastic problem on their island of Bali. And Bye Bye Plastic Bags was born.

Photo Alexander Koerner/Getty Images

The woman who was once enslaved by ISIS — and won a Nobel Peace Prize

In August 2014, Nadia Murad was one of thousands of women from the Yazidi minority in northern Iraq who were captured by ISIS and forced into sexual slavery. Three months later, she escaped through a door that a captor left unlocked.

She has shared her painful story with international media outlets and has become a voice for captive women and girls in the process.

Read the full story here on even more ways women change the world