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The
Global Women’s Strike is women’s answer to globalisation and
militarisation which prioritise the production of things over caring for
people, and therefore threaten our lives and the planet.
Women demand a total change of social and economic priorities for
women and therefore for men:
· Payment for all caring work – in wages, pensions, land and other
resources
· pay equity internationally·paid maternity leave, breastfeeding breaks
and other benefits
· don’t pay ‘Third World debt’
· accessible clean water, healthcare, housing, transport, literacy and
information
· non-polluting energy and technology to shorten our hours and burden of
work;
· protection and asylum from all violence & persecution
· freedom of movement.
Kaabong
Women’s Group in UGANDA report that after last year’s GWS won some
free hospital care for all, women’s status raised as husbands have given
them land and animals.
This year
women will carry a broom to symbolize that they intend to sweep the
world clean and “solve this local and international super crisis”
calling for affordable and accessible housing, transport, protection from
all violence at home and outside. (
OTHER
INTERNATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS
ARGENTINA:
The Sindicato de Amas de Casa (Housewives Union) in Santa Fe is
holding daily women’s assemblies in the poorest neighbourhoods as part
of the popular uprising. Co-ordinating GWS actions, “The Sweep” will press their
demands to deal with the Argentinian crisis.
IRELAND:
Women in Media & Entertainment holding a 10-hour vigil outside a church in Galway to exchange
music, poetry, other “creative contributions”.
GUYANA:
Red Thread multi-racial women’s group holding a ‘Cacerolazo’ (pots & pans protest) in
Linden bringing together Indigenous, Indo and Afro-Guyanese women calling
for an end to exorbitant prices for electricity, phones and water, and for
affordable land and housing materials for single mothers.
NEW
ZEALAND: Auckland International Women’s Day Group holding a “Value Women’s Work” rally and march,
demanding equal pay, support for National Caregivers Day, free childcare,
support for nurses and against the oppressive conditions conditions of
immigrants and refugees.
PERU:
Aymara Centre ‘Pacha Aru’ co-ordinating activities in Aymara and Quechua communities in the Andes; working
closely with the Domestic Workers Centre which is pulling together
a network of grassroots women’s groups and trade unions in Lima and the
rest of the country.
SPAIN:
WFH Campaign co-ordinating national events, including “occupation”
by women of Barcelona’s main Plaza San Jaime, demanding welfare benefits
for all women, including immigrants; several branches of National Union
Confederacion General del Trabajo (CGT) supporting Strike actions; Basque
country feminist collective calling a one-hour stoppage.
UNITED
STATES: events in San Francisco, Philadelphia, New York, New Jersey,
Boston, Los Angeles, Wisconsin – opposing war-mongering and corporate
thievery, and ending welfare “reform” which is cutting mothers’
money, forcing them to take any job anywhere at any wage.
Central event in London:
Invest in Caring Not Killing: Whistle-Stop Tour and "Cacerolazo"
to Sweep Out the Global Killers Giant
puppet, drummers, dancing and chanting.
Bring your brooms, pots and pans to bang.
Wheelchair users, kids, cyclists welcome.
Assemble: 12noon, Shell Centre, York Rd, Waterloo. Starting:
12.30pm; then to Ministry of Defence - women of different faiths will bear
witness; Institute of Directors; Ending: 3pm, World Bank, Haymarket,
Piccadilly.
Women mental health system survivors protest outside a psychiatric
hospital based near Shell.
Other countries participating so far: Austria; Belarus; Bolivia;
Brazil; Canada; Colombia; Congo; France: Ghana; India; Italy; Korea;
Macedonia; Mexico; Nigeria; Poland; Scotland; Sweden; Switzerland;
Tanzania; Trinidad & Tobago; Uruguay.
Support from men Payday, a network of men working with the International Wages for
Housework Campaign, is co-ordinating strike support of men internationally
– contact 020-7209 4751; payday@paydaynet.org
For more information about events elsewhere in UK and internationally: International Wages for Housework Campaign,
Crossroads Women's Centre, 230a Kentish Town Rd. NW5 2AB
Tel: 020 7482 2496 Fax: 020
7209 4761
Email: womenstrike8m@server101.com
Website: http://womenstrike8m.server101.com |
