INTERNATIONAL WORKING WOMEN'S DAY
From Manila to Istanbul, women speak out
International Women's Day was celebrated on March 8 all
over the world--by workers, farmers, students, political
prisoners, activists, the poor and the oppressed.
Women farmers across Brazil protested capitalist
globalization policies.
Seven hundred women from the Landless Rural Workers
Movement sat-in at a McDonald's restaurant in Porto
Alegre. They burned flags displaying the fast-food chain
logo and demanded an end to their government's capitulation
to imperialist economic demands.
A protest in Belo Horizonte by women pushed
officials to hasten agrarian reform.
In Guatemala, members of the Coordinating Committee
of Women, Children and Youth of the Union of the
Quetzaltenango Workers marched in the streets of
Quetzaltenango to demand their rights. They called for
an end to injustice and domestic violence.
In Nicaragua, women marched through Managua
with banners containing similar messages.
Other International Women's Day events took place in
Venezuela and Peru.
Political prisoner Marcela Rodriguez Valdivieso issued a
statement on March 8 from a prison hospital in
Santiago, Chile. She was a member of the
Lautaro People's Rebel Forces, which fought the CIA-backed
Pinochet dictatorship. She was injured and captured in 1990
during an attempt to free a political prisoner and was sent
to prison for 20 years.
Her message read in part, "I salute the combative and
revolutionary women who struggle for a better world and who
for this reason are persecuted, tortured and jailed. But
above all I send my most heartfelt homage to all the women
who struggled against the cruel and bloody military
dictatorship and who gave their lives to raise the dreams for
a free and just society based on solidarity."
In Colombia, the revolutionary FARC-EP issued a
statement hailing women fighting against the capitalist
system and promulgating socialism. At the same time,
ultra-right paramilitary forces harassed women from the Ruta
Pacifica de las Mujeres who were distributing literature in
Barrancabermeja. And Yolanda Bercerra, director of the
Popular Women's Organization, faced death threats.
In Haiti, 5,000 people commemorated March 8 at an
event outside the Fort National Women's Prison in
Port-au-Prince. Speakers addressed the conditions of
women prisoners and expressed their solidarity.
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and Mildred Trouillot
Aristide, and Minister of Women's Conditions Ginette Lubin
visited the prisoners. President Aristede said, "We choose
this day to show how much we respect the voice of women, and
we give thanks to women here and around the world." Some
women prisoners were freed on this occasion.
Thousands of women living in revolutionary Cuba,
where International Women' s Day is a very important annual
celebration, massed at a Santa Clara monument to Che
Guevera. The incorporation of women's rights into every
sphere of society, including education and government, is an
integral part of the revolution.
'Equal wages for equal work'
In the Philippines, women sneaked into the
presidential compound in Manila, despite a heavy
police presence. They marched with their fists in the air,
shouting out their demands that the Philippine government
raise the status of women and implement needed social
programs.
Women demonstrated in New Delhi, India, for social,
economic and political equality, including employment,
education and improved healthcare for the half-a-billion
women of their country. Many of the women, holding infants,
shouted, "Give us food, clothing and shelter," and "We do
equal work, we want equal wages."
Speakers--including Ranjana Kumari, secretary of the
Mahila Dakshata Samiti women's organization--said they
marched to show the government that "women's issues cannot be
ignored."
Over 1,000 women demonstrated in Colombo, Sri
Lanka, to protest increases in taxes and utility
prices.
Thousands of Kurdish women in Istanbul,
Turkey and Ankara, joined together to celebrate
International Women's Day. They paid homage to the victims of
rape and other forms of violence against women.
That demonstration and other rallies held all over Turkey
demanded more rights for the 12 million Kurds living there
who suffer extreme repression. Police arrested 31 people in
Mersin and Adana.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions issued a
statement on this occasion reviewing women's "massive
contribution." The solidarity statement by this massive union
organization in South Africa salutes "all those
heroines who have worked tirelessly to advance the struggles
of the poor and the oppressed. We continue to be inspired by
these revolutionaries, and believe it is fitting a day should
be set aside to pay them their well deserved tributes."
Demands by COSATU for women around the globe included
affordable and accessible housing and transportation,
protection against all violence, equal pay for equal work,
paid maternity leave and equal opportunities in the
workplace.
Impact of
counter-revolution on women
In Western Europe, "sexual trafficking" has been
such a focus of protests by women that the European Union was
pressured to issue a statement addressing the issue on
International Women's Day.
An estimated 700,000 women and children a
year--particularly poor, desperate migrant workers--are
forced physically or economically into these prostitution
networks where they are subject to rape and battering.
Traffickers make big profits on this inhuman
exploitation.
In the formerly socialist countries, women's rights have
been set back since the reemergence of capitalism.
Women's groups in Russia demanded better jobs for
women and criticized soaring rates of domestic abuse and
rape.
In Poland, women criticized the lack of right to
abortion and lack of sex education in the schools. Women's
groups there took to the streets on March 8 to push for an
equal share of political representation.
In the Czech Republic, leftist women's groups
marked March 8 with a conference and local celebrations. A
statement put out by Social-Democratic Women called for a
system of public health for all--something that women lost
with the overthrow of socialism. It also defended full
reproductive rights for all women--including the right to
abortion.
Women in Paris, France, demonstrated in
support of Afghani women who suffer extreme repression in
education, employment and access to health care. Public life
for women is virtually prohibited there.
In other towns in France, and in Greece,
Italy, Portugal and England, the day was
observed with actions or implementation of new legal measures
to defend women 's rights.
Throughout the world, women are grappling with the
problems brought on by imperialist globalization, creating
greater inequities, a worsening of the "feminization of
poverty," and engendering more violence against and
exploitation of women.
Yet women are fighting back--from Manila to Istanbul--with
tremendous spirit, organization and solidarity with their
sisters worldwide, boding well for resistance and struggles
ahead.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
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