Women in struggle around the world
By
Kathy Durkin
Published Mar 16, 2005 1:45 PM
If you glance at newspaper headlines or at
internet news sites, you might get the idea that International Women’s Day
is all about Laura Bush speaking at a roundtable discussion about
“equality in the Middle East.”
Nothing could be further from
the truth. Women the world over despise the Bush administration and its whole
program, which harms women in Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, the
Middle East-in fact, everywhere.
Internationally, women have for decades
fought back against the imperialist governments’ programs and actions. The
current Bush regime is no exception.
The U.S. government lied about
intervening in Afghanistan to “protect women’s rights.” In
fact, after U.S. bombing and occupation, Afghan women now live in terrible
conditions, in poverty, wanting for health care and housing, with a 14- percent
illiteracy rate and “a maternal mortality rate 60 times more than in
industrialized countries.” (IRIN News)
Washington may cry crocodile
tears about women’s rights in Iraq. But the war and occupation have killed
and injured tens of thousands of Iraqi women and their children, destroyed much
of the prior quality of life, and led to impoverishment, homelessness and lack
of medical care.
Palestinian women and their families have faced
U.S.-backed Israeli attacks and repression resulting in many deaths and
injuries, imprisonment, house demolitions and land theft. Yet they continue to
boldly participate in the struggle in all areas.
International
Women’s Day is a yearly commemoration synonymous with struggle. Since its
founding in 1910 by socialist women, this day has been marked by creative,
militant actions: strikes, prison breakouts, and sit-ins and marches against
imperialist war, globalization, poverty, exploitation and all forms of
inequality.
Here are some highlights of this year’s protests on
International Women’s Day.
Ten thousand Haitian women and their
supporters marched in a Lavalas-led International Women’s Day protest in
Bel-Air in Port-au-Prince. They demanded release of their loved ones imprisoned
in the National Penitentiary, reinstatement of democratically elected President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was ousted in a February 2004 U.S.-backed coup, and
respect for their rights. Women clad in white carried photographs of their
family members who’d been murdered for supporting Aristide’s return.
(Haiti News)
Philippine women held varied actions. Some with faces covered
with masks of U.S. President George W. Bush and Philippines President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo and others with fists raised, they marched at Manila’s
Malacanang Palace for equal rights in all spheres.
Pilakk, Makalaya and
Likhaan, centers for women’s health and urban poor women and youth, led a
march to the House of Representatives in Quezon City to demand passage of a
critically needed reproductive-rights bill that the reactionary Catholic Church
hierarchy is impeding. (news.inq7.net)
This struggle has become a rallying
cry for many sectors, but it especially affects poor women. Gabriela and Woman
Rage! members joined the protest in Quezon City on this issue while KPML, Zoto
and Kasama Ka went to Manila City Hall.
With purple and red flags blazing,
500 women and their families gathered at the Welcome Rotunda in Quezon City to
denounce President Macapagal-Arroyo’s sales tax hike and higher prices. As
they called for her ouster, the Gabriela-NCR-led protesters called for higher
wages, better conditions for migrant workers and for real “Woman
Power.”
Indonesian women marked the day all over the country. Some
in Solo, Central Java, rallied to protest rising fuel prices. A 29-percent rise
in those necessities had sparked student and worker protests in 10 cities on
March 1. (Jakarta Post)
Kurdish women—carrying Turkish-language
banners reading “No to War” and “We Are Women against
Violence”—joined in a march of some 5,000 Turkish women in central
Istanbul to mark this special day. It was a far cry from March 6, when police
brutally attacked a pre-International Women’s Day protest in Istanbul,
provoking international outrage.
Demonstrators in Bangladesh, India,
Pakistan and elsewhere in Asia called for women’s equal rights, including
for workers, and an end to all repressive laws and physical and sexual violence
against women.
Throughout Latin America, women marched and rallied to mark
this historic day.
In Asunción, Paraguay, they demonstrated for
improved education, health care and housing. In Panama City, Pana ma, they
objected to government plans to “reform” Social Security. And they
marched for their rights in Ecuador, Mexico, and El Salvador.
Thousands of
Brazilian women rallied on March 8. On the streets of Rio de Janeiro they
chanted, “We want peace.” Indigenous women marched in São
Paulo. Women in the Landless Movement demanded agrarian reform at the doors of
the Ministry of Economy in Brasília.
Chile’s International
Women’s Day was dedicated to the Communist Party leader Gladys Marin. Tens
of thousands paid tribute at her funeral. Marin, whose life partner was
“disappeared” during the early days of the Pinochet regime, had been
forced to flee Chile. She joined the underground resistance in 1978 when she
returned, and until 1990 organized opposition to the brutal U.S.-backed
dictatorship. Marin was a strong fighter for women’s rights.
On
March 8, the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) stated that it “will always
keep alive the Chilean leader’s struggle for justice, human integrity and
faith for the future.”
Women’s equality is codified into the
law in socialist Cuba. The government, with the leadership of the FMC, strives
constantly to improve women’s lives and opportunities in all
areas.
A Havana rally marked International Women’s Day. Officiating
were FMC’s National Secretariat and its National Committee, led by
President Vilma Espin, “Heroine of the Republic” Melba Hernandez,
the mothers and wives of the Cuban Five political prisoners jailed in the United
States, and leaders of the Communist Party, the government, and mass and student
organizations.
President Fidel Castro praised Cuban women. He stressed the
“extraordinary role that women have played in the Revolution” and
noted that “women dignified the Revolution, which they have taken to the
highest planes that any process has reached.” He called attention to
women’s role in the troops, militias and “all forms of organization
that will defend the country in case of attack or
invasion.”(Granma)
A celebration the same day at the Leonor Perez
Maternity Home in Old Havana illuminated Cuba’s excellent health-care
system that has led to infant and maternal mortality rates rate that are
“the lowest in the continent,” according to Dr. Lea Guido, Cuban
representative of the Pan American Health Organization (periodico26.cu)
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