News
9 December: what is celebrated today
On 9 December the calendar fills with voices demanding justice, dignity and awareness. It is a day that speaks of integrity against corruption, memory in the face of the horror of genocide, freedom to think without dogma, technology at the service of humanity and the defence of the youngest people who work. Five observances that together draw a powerful idea: that of a world still seeking to balance progress with ethics.
International Day against Corruption
The UN established this day in 2003 with a clear goal: to put an end to one of the most corrosive evils of modern society. Every year, billions are lost to bribes, money that could have gone to schools, hospitals or shelters. Under the slogan ‘Uniting the world against corruption’, the United Nations reminds us that this crime empties not only public coffers, but also trust in institutions.
Fighting corruption means defending what belongs to everyone. It means demanding transparency, rewarding honesty and understanding that ethics are not a luxury, but the foundation of all coexistence. No democracy is possible if truth is bought or justice is sold.
International Day against Genocide
9 December also commemorates the 1948 Convention on the Prevention of Genocide, in honour of the victims of history’s most atrocious crimes. Since 2015, the date has served as a reminder that hatred, when institutionalised, can destroy entire peoples.
The UN insists that prevention begins long before weapons: in words, in everyday dehumanisation, in the invisible borders we raise between ‘us’ and ‘them’. Remembering every genocide — Rwanda, Armenia, Bosnia, the Holocaust — is not looking back, but warning about the present. Memory is the first wall against barbarism.
International Day of Secularism and Freedom of Conscience
The freedom to believe or not to believe is an achievement that remains at risk. The International Day of Secularism and Freedom of Conscience, promoted by European civil organisations, calls for the separation of Church and State and for every person’s right to think without imposition.
Secularism is not the absence of faith, but respect for all beliefs. It is the guarantee that no doctrine dominates the law, that school teaches people to reason before obeying. In times of polarisation, free thought remains the most revolutionary act.
World Computer Day
The same day also marks World Computer Day, in tribute to Grace Hopper, a programming pioneer and creator of the COBOL language. Since 1983, this date has reminded us that behind every algorithm is a human mind and a story of ingenuity.
Computing has transformed the world: from the first computers that occupied a room to the devices that today fit in a pocket. But its impact is not only technical; it is also ethical. Every technological advance forces us to ask how we want to use it: to control or to connect, to divide or to understand.
International Day of the Dignity of Working Girls, Boys and Adolescents
Finally, 9 December is also a day for recognising and defending the rights of millions of minors who work in precarious conditions. Established in 1996 in Kudapur (India), this day seeks to make their reality visible without condemning it: many of them work out of necessity, but they deserve to do so with safety, respect and educational opportunities.
Children’s dignity does not consist only in protecting them, but in listening to them. Behind every working child is a story of resilience, a family struggling to survive. Recognising their voice is the first step towards a world in which no child has to choose between studying and eating.