|
GWS
ACTIONS 2002
ARGENTINA
ENGLAND GHANA
GUYANA
INDIA IRELAND
ITALY MEXICO
PERU SPAIN
TRINIDAD & TOBAGO UGANDA
USA
|
ARGENTINA
Click here for more informataion |
 |
ENGLAND
Click
here for more info & photos |
 |
|
GHANA
People’s Education Association in Anum
organised a women’s march, carrying placards including "Who listens
to the women?" and "Be responsible to your children, Men".
The secretary’s Welcome Address reports that rural women lose out under
globalization, which is technical and capital based, their poverty
deprives them of education, healthcare and technology. PEA calls on the
government to reactivate large state-owned farms which were established
under the first Republic of Ghana, but have collapsed. The farms provided
employment for rural women and girls. Young people have been forced by
unemployment to migrate to the cities, leaving older people, women and
children without healthcare. PEA therefore calls on the authorities to
open a district hospital and to equip schools. They sent 10 demands to the
Ghanaian President that:
- Society values all women’s work and all women’s lives.
- All unlawful savings of third world leaders including Ghana in the
developed countries be retrieved and invested in the enrichment of
every life particularly women and girls.
- Create an allowance and pension for women’s vital biological and
caring work (Wages for Housework).
- Developing countries’ debt at the World Bank, IMF and other
bi-lateral and multi-lateral agencies be cancelled. Women forming
almost 2/3 of the population in these countries have no work doing
to contribute to paying these debts.
- All interest rate charges on funds to alleviate poverty should be
removed so that women who for the core of poverty would be
encouraged to take bold steps to alleviating poverty.
- Stop penalizing us for being women.
- Make clean water, good healthcare, housing, transport, and
literacy accessible and affordable to all women.
- Freedom of movement. Especially women and girls (no fear of
kidnapping, abduction or murder),
- Protection and asylum for women and girls from all forms of
violence and persecution, by family members or people in positions
of authority.
- Create more jobs to employ more women.
Click here for photos...
|
 |
|
GUYANA
"It was FANTASTIC". The main streets of
Christianburg, Wismar, and Mackenzie in Linden rang out with the noise of empty
pots and pans banging and of 140 plus women chanting." Action called
by Red Thread women’s group brought together Guyanese women of many
races – Afro-Guyanese, Indo-Guyanese, Amerindian, Mixed - supported by
about a dozen men. Demands included an end to exorbitant prices for
electricity, phones and water as a result of privatisation; affordable
land and housing materials for single mothers; pensions and benefits for
housewives and domestic workers; daycare and breastfeeding breaks for
working mothers; protection of children from rape and car accidents;
healthcare and treatment of the mosquito-spread malaria, and for roads to
be built. People turned their brooms upside down to show their support.
The coming together of the women was especially significant. In the 1960s
Indo-Guyanese people were driven out of Linden by the race violence
spurred on by the British invasion which brought down the first
multiracial independence government in 1953. Now, for the first time, the
women had the power to reclaim their first right – not to be at war with
their neighbour of another race.
Click here for photos...
|
 |
|
INDIA
Since 1994 in almost all the 400 villages where the Chhattisgarh Women’s
Organisation (CWO) is working there is now a grain bank to prevent
starvation and moneylenders who charge high interest. The women, 60 % of
whom are Tribal and 40% Dalit, collect, contribute and keep the grains in
one place. They maintain records, and during an emergency any member in
need can borrow and repay later.
The GWS was celebrated on 14 March when more than 4,000 CWO women
members gathered in their office grounds. A crowd stretching 1.5km marched
to Pithora City shouting slogans with banners and posters, and gathered
outside the office of the Chief Executive Officer of Pithora. On 16 March
10 women visited Chief minister Mr. Ajit Jogi and handed over 27 demands,
including an end to violence against women; equal wage for equal work;
safe drinking water; health and medical facilities; remove untouchability;
land rights; a bonus for Tendu leaf workers (smoking stick leaf). The
print and electronic media covered the story with photographs.
Click here
fore more info & photos
|
 |
|
IRELAND
A 10-hour vigil outside St Nicholas’ Church in Galway town
center, called by Women in Media & Entertainment, was dogged by
storms, sleet, rain and snow. But thanks to hot food supplied by men
supporters, and free refreshments from several pubs, cafes and bakeries,
the Strikers were not defeated. They had giant puppets, flags and posters
on the church railings. In between the storms they had a Speakout, a Dance
of the Brushes and swept the main shopping street clean of corporate
greed; dashed into a welfare office, bank, McDonalds and other sites run
by multinationals where people joined chants and speeches. At the police
station they demanded an end to police-enforced deportations and official
racism, and asked what happened to last year’s indictment of Bertie
Aherne for war crimes against women in Afghanistan when he let George Bush’s
military use Irish airports, breaking Ireland’s long tradition of
neutrality. Finally they danced, swept and sang through the Catholic
cathedral.
As a result of exhibiting their demands on the wall of the Student
Union building, women at the university won free childcare for mothers
going on an archaeology field trip; this demand had been fought all year
in the Archaeology Dept. and trade union. Protesters condemned the
university trying to approve a military degree. At the Fianna Fail Ard
Fheis (general conference), Bertie Ahern promised full pensions for
homemakers at the non-contributory rate.
Click here for photos...
|
 |
|
ITALY
In Rome the Welfare International Association had banners for
wages for housework and against the Concordate (agreement between the
State and the Vatican) and dust pans and brooms. The Latin American
Association, an immigrant women’s association and the Union of rational
agnostics joined. One of the biggest national newspapers publicized the
GWS.
|
|
|
MEXICO
Guerrero Mexican woman journalist from Voces de Mujeres radio
made a speech on 7 March when receiving an award "Distinguished Women
of Guerrero". She called on the authorities to implement the Federal
Work Law and spoke against big employers, who abuse workers’ rights. She
denounced the murders of more than 200 women in the City of Juarez since
1993 which a group of Mexican women are taking to the Interamerican
Commission of Human Rights; also calling for the investigation of the
rapes of Indigenous women in Montana by the military. Asking why there is
not enough money and resources for women and children when $800 billion
dollars are spent on the military, she said "for these 800 billion
reasons, women in the world, with the slogan Invest in Caring Not Killing’
demand a planet of happiness, living in equality, freedom, justice and
peace."
|
|
|
Nigeria |
|
|
PERU
Click here for
information and photos
|
 |
SPAIN
Click
here fore more info & photos |
 |
TRINIDAD & TOBAGO
Over sixty women attended a grassroots women’s Open house and
Speakout at the home/office of the National Union of Domestic Employees
(NUDE) in Port of Spain. Organisers were delighted by the great response
and were overwhelmed by the number of women who came. "The house was
full - luckily we rented a tent for outside and the tent was packed.
"
Click here for photos... |
|
|
UGANDA
Events took place all over the country. 300 women and girls and 10 men
gathered at Kaabong Women’s Centre on the morning of 8th
March, joining 50 women from Loyoro who arrived the previous evening.
Participants wore T-shirts which were made especially to support for the
GWS, donated by a local woman member of parliament, many women wore
traditional dress. The march was led by the Strike banner and five women
holding brooms sweeping the ground. Singing and chanting "Tomunikisi
akicunggat akiyar mere ayara" (invest in caring not killing), they
marched through Kaabong senior secondary school, passed the sub county
offices, police station and main hospital, stopped at the market, and
performed a mini drama about how to stop and report domestic violence.
Demanding rights, singing out local demands, including accessible clean
drinking water, accessible roads and an end to poverty. After marching
they went back to the Centre for a party. More women and men joined,
enjoying roasted bull and local brew as they listened to many speeches.
The Strike was front page news on national newspaper The Other Voice,
which quoted IBWWFH, and interviewed many women in Uganda about why they
supported the Strike and what it could do to change their lives.
Click here for photos...
|
|
|
USA
Los Angeles: A noisy and spirited group of about 500 people
marched in downtown LA, with puppets, pots and pans and drums, a float for
older people and people with disabilities, banners and placards in English
and Spanish on 'Welfare Not Warfare'. The multiracial march led by the
IWFHC brought together unwaged moms, grandmothers and small children,
waged workers and trade unionists including the woman president of Utility
Workers Union Local 132 and a contingent from the Homecare Workers Union,
welfare and antiwar activists, lots of young people and a number of men.
They protested against the Global Loan Sharks at Bank of America and
against the theft of women's money at a Social Security office and the
Welfare Department. An evening celebration was held for the 3rd year at
Alexandria House, a transitional residence and house of hospitality for
women and children.
Click here for photos...
|
 |
|
Massachusetts: women in Western Massachusetts celebrated
Strike Day with a rally and dinner, organized by a coalition of the Women’s
Congress for Peace, American Friends Service Ctte, and others. Boston:
a radio station broadcasting news of the Strike obtained the endorsement
of author, filmmaker and humorist Michael Moore.
Monterey: The woman Commissioner of Monterey County
Commission on the Status of Women again produced her calendar for Women’s
History Month which features the GWS prominently.
New York Manhattan: A woman organised a protest outside
a mental institution where she used to be incarcerated in
solidarity with those inside. The protest was one of the lead stories in
the evening news and was covered by the radio. Flushing: The Greens
leafleted with strike materials in Spanish, English, Chinese and Korean
with a special focus on lack of affordable housing and the need for a
living wage -- two big issues that affect women in that predominately
immigrant community. The Global Sweatshops march on March 9 declared it a
GWS event.
|
|
|
Philadelphia: Over 75 women, children and men, including two
van-loads of students from Bard College in NY, spent the day riding the
colourfully decorated Strike Bus to "follow the money trail"
through Philadelphia, PA and Camden NJ, one of the poorest cities in the
US. Black, Latino/a, Asian, and white, from age 16 to 87, banged
pots and pans in the "cacerolazo" calling out Global Killers at
corporations, banks, government and the military, specifically Salomon
Smith Barney (money launderers and predatory lenders), Philadelphia
Workforce Development Corporation (profiteers off of welfare mothers),
Glaxo Smith Kline (drug pushers), L3 Communications defense contractors
(war profiteers), and Monsanto (poisoners of food and land). National
Public Radio covered the event. One highlight was a statement in support
of the Strike from Black residents in Anniston Alabama who sued Monsanto
for pollution and won.
Click here for photos...
|
 |
|
San Francisco: There was a lively march co-ordinated by WFH to
several State/multinational building, with a big puppet and drummers, and
a loud pots and pans protest at the welfare department with over 100
people including many Immokalee farm workers with their banners. Speakers
from many groups spoke to a delighted crowd. A gay City Supervisor who has
been very supportive, Tom Ammiano, joined the protest at City Hall. By the
time the march reached the Federal Building, it had grown to more than 200
people!
Click here for photos...
|
|
|
Utah: JEDI for Women, a group of mothers on welfare, held an outdoor
rally and read the Strike demands, holding big bold banners and placards
demanding "Invest in Caring Not Killing!’ and "Reclaim
military spending for caring, feeding, healing and learning!’
Click here for photos...
Wisconsin (Milwaukee): The Welfare Warriors sponsored a Photo Bus
Tour of Bloated BIG Business to investigate and expose the Corporate
Empires that keeps too many Americans and people around the world living
in poverty. They targeted a number of businesses such as Walmart, Beverly
Nursing Homes, Aramark Children's World and Taco Bell. They exposed the
relationship between poor moms who are forced by welfare reform to take
any job, anywhere, at any wage, and the corporations who benefit from this
glut of low-wage labour. They also targeted the biggest business of all,
war, outside the U.S. ARMY BASE where they learned that the US spends
$30bn per month for war, $14.5bn for nuclear weapons and $7.8bn for star
wars missile system.
|
|
|
International Strike report
2001
Home |