SUFFRAGETTE Emmeline Pankhurst’s great-granddaughter led a march yesterday days before International Women’s Day to highlight the inequality still facing women.

The march held on Mother’s Day commemorated women that trek long distances to protect their children from warzones and young girls that often put their education on hold to walk miles every day to find clean water.

Dr Helen Pankhurst — one of many of the women dressed as suffragettes with “deeds not words” sashes — said she felt “really honoured” and “proud” to be related to the leader of the women’s rights movement but that there was “still a need for activism” on the streets.

She added: “It’s about celebration, it’s about being together, it’s about sisterhood.

“We can do that in many ways, we can do that through social media but there is still a value in being out in the streets, walking together shoulder to shoulder as the suffragettes did 100 years ago.”

She was marching with her daughter Laura in aid of the Walk In Her Shoes rally organised by Care International to encourage people to fundraise by walking 10,000 steps a day for one week in March.

Celebrities such as singer Annie Lennox, rights campaigner Bianca Jagger and pop trio Sister Sledge were also among the procession that walked near the River Thames to the sounds of cheers and drumming.

Ms Lennox made a passionate plea to stamp out gender inequality around the world and praised the suffragettes for their bravery in campaigning for women’s right to vote.

She said: “They were sacrificing themselves for us … To have access to the democratic vote, to education, to job opportunities — the fight continues. “

The problem is in our country is we have amnesia. We forget that people sacrifice so much to give us the things we take for granted.”

She added: “As a mother I’ve realised I’ve such a privileged life and I’ve seen the disparity, and I feel indebted and I feel that I must stand in solidarity.”

Hundreds of people also assembled in the Scoop amphitheatre on the South Bank to listen to women forced to undergo female genital mutilation (FGM), politicians and feminist campaigners.

Labour candidate for the mayor of London Sadiq Khan and his lawyer wife Saadiya also attended.