Campaigners Mary Ann McCracken and Winifred Carney are the first non-royal women to receive the honour.

Statues of the sisters of high-profile figures who have been overshadowed by their more famous brothers have been erected around the country.

Statues in South Korea of a man kneeling in front of a girl symbolising victims of sexual slavery by Japan’s wartime military have become the latest subject of diplomatic sensitivity between the countries.

A judge issued an injunction barring a US city from removing any more Confederate monuments, a process that began last week after a mayor ordered the statues cleared away amid weeks of protests over police brutality and racism.

Campaigners are calling for the removal of twin Emancipation memorials in Washington DC and Boston that depict a freed slave kneeling at Abraham Lincoln’s feet.

Two Paris statues related to France’s colonial era were daubed with red paint amid a global movement to take down monuments to figures tied to slavery or colonialism.