In China, the government is working to make sure women have the same access to resources as men, but women today are not yet fully empowered due to various factors. Based on my experience, I believe the biggest problem is the prejudice against women that is deeply rooted in the minds of the Chinese people, including women themselves. 

I'm lucky because education has changed my life in a manner I had never thought of. Born in a small village deep in the western part of China, I finished postgraduate education with the support of my parents and am now financially independent thanks to my job as a translator. 

But many of my childhood friends are less fortunate because they didn't get further education after the nine-year compulsory education, even though they had performed better than me. They were married when they were around 20 under the ubiquitous pressure from their parents and relatives who believe women didn't need much education.

After that, they became housewives and were stuck in a remote village or town. Every time we meet, they would recollect our childhood and imagine what if they had continued their education. 

Such prejudices are also present among well-educated women, who aren't confident about being as capable as men. One of my friends quit her job as a project manager after pregnancy and has since spared no effort to take care of the family. She believes if one of the couple has to make a sacrifice for the family, it should be the wife because a house-husband is unimaginable and it is also less likely for the wife to advance in her career.

Her sacrifice didn't bring harmony to the family. Instead, due to her loss of financial independence, she now suffers abuse from her husband who thinks she can't live without his salary and devalues her role as a full-time housewife.

I think the best benefit for Chinese women today is the chance to become financially independent through means such as education and pursue a life we want. Let's not waste that chance, because we have a big part to play in empowering ourselves.

I must acknowledge that we have made significant progress on the African continent toward the empowerment of women; however, more still needs to be done. The African continent has shown great commitment to pushing for women empowerment as well as gender equality. Most of the countries on the continent have ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women as well as the AU's Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa. Additionally, the AU declared 2010-2020 as the Decade of African Women.

This commitment has brought visible changes in the composition of the continent's political leadership. For instance, according to a 2019 report published by the UN, Ethiopia registered the largest increase of women in political leadership from 10 percent in 2017 to 47.6 percent in 2019, while Rwanda had the highest number of women in ministerial positions, accounting for 51.9 percent of the total. However, despite these developments, we must also be cognizant of the structural and societal challenges that hinder the full empowerment of women in Africa.

These include the lack of access to resources, teen pregnancies and early marriages, discrimination in recruitment and poor work conditions.

The lack of education has also been cited as a hindrance in women's ability to deliver in executive decision-making roles, thus entrenching the negative societal stereotypes of women.

This is because enabling women to take part in decision-making processes is not simply about having a specific number of women in leadership, but also about their ability to participate and affect meaningful policy change to improve the lives of all women across the continent.

Globally, women empowerment is regarded not only as an indicator of social change but also as a priority of the Sustainable Development Goals. This implies that we must work together toward empowering women and promoting gender parity in all development sectors, so that we can make substantive progress in creating a better world for every woman, man, and child. There is still a lot to be done before we can say that women are fully empowered.