Women in struggle around the world

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)