International Strike Report 2003
Since the first Global Women’s Strike on 8 March 2000, women in over 70 countries have taken action together to demand that the world INVEST IN CARING NOT KILLING. This year, strikers on every continent confronted the global war machine that is not only invading Iraq but imposing decades of poverty, tyranny and genocidal conflict on the peoples of Africa, Australasia and Latin America. We demanded that the world’s military budgets be returned to the world’s carers who are women first of all – “a total change of priorities so life and the care of it once more becomes society’s priority, to be shared by all; and we stop the oil for war and war for oil that makes war on all of us every day.”
All over Latin America, women took part. The women in VENEZUELA shared with the rest of us the achievements of the “peaceful and democratic Bolivarian revolution”. Since the Strike sent a fact-finding mission to Caracas in July 2002 at the invitation of the Women’s Institute (INAMUJER), the Strike has issued a Call for support of Venezuelan women which has been endorsed all over the world. In Caracas, a Strike statement was read at the official International Women’s Day event. In a number of countries INAMUJER’s message endorsing the Strike and its demands was circulated. It was received with great attention and enthusiastic applause. In San Francisco the march made a special stop at the Venezuelan Consulate.
The Venezuelan revolution – Urgent appeal from women to women all over the world
Appeal to US trade unionists on behalf of workers in Venezuela
Supporting statements from INAMUJER, Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, to the Strike, and from the Strike to INAMUJER read at Strike events in London & Caracas
In
Santa Fe, ARGENTINA, the Housewives Trade Union (Sindicato
de Amas de Casa), and the Interneighbourhood Women’s Network (Red
Interbarrial de Mujeres) issued a call for “Active Peace – Let’s
Stop the World and Change it.” 300 women, including women from many
“barrios” (poor neighbourhoods) blockaded the main road with planks
symbolizing women’s empty tables, and posters declaring that all there
is at home is the bread that women’s work has produced. The leaflet
said: “Do you think the war is far away? Do you think the scandal and
the shame of malnutrition has nothing to do with war? Third World debt,
the money multinationals steal from us, privatisations, the World Bank and
IMF are what they need to make the bombs that will kill more women,
children and men elsewhere. More
than $900 billion are spent on military budgets, some of this money
prevents our children from eating, having an education and healthcare . .
. They steal our lives to kill other lives. Our governments are servants
of Bush and his partners.”
Informe del Sindicato del Amas de Casa, Santa Fe
(Spanish)
In Bogota, COLOMBIA, women put forward Invest in Caring Not Killing “so that all women regardless of political sympathies can unite from their heart and influence the demands which are being put forward on the day.”
In Georgetown, GUYANA, 500 people – mostly women – answered Red Thread’s call to march and rally against the racist violence in Guyana and the racist war on Iraq. Women came with pots and pans to show that no housework or family care was being done. Marchers and speakers included women from all races and faiths. In the face of unprecedented levels of violence and racial tension, the Strike proclaimed: “It is not OK to accept that any mother’s son be murdered by police because he is African-Guyanese ... It is not OK to accept that any mother’s 18-year-old son be murdered because he is a policeman (where else was he to work?). It is not OK to accept that any mother’s daughter or son be abused, or raped, or robbed or killed because she/he is Indian-Guyanese … It is not OK to continue this war, and to use this war to continue ignoring the desperate needs and demands of Amerindian people.”
Domestic workers in Lima, PERU, co-ordinated by the Centro de Capacitacion para Trabajadoras del Hogar, held actions over three days including a Homage to Grassroots Leaders (Homenaje a las dirigentas de base) attended by 500 domestic workers to press for better working conditions and the protection of labour legislation. In Arima, TRINIDAD & TOBAGO, the National Union of Domestic Employees presented similar demands. Also in PERU, Indigenous rural Aymara and Quechua women traveled from their Andean communities to the city of Puno, and marched behind the banner of the Pacha Aru Aymara Centre, demanding the recognition of women’s rural work. Women in BRAZIL, BOLIVIA, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, GUATEMALA, Mexico and Nicaragua also took part.
Strike actions in Puno, Peru
In Africa the biggest mobilisation was in UGANDA, where the Kaabong Women’s Organisation is still celebrating its victory of getting the government to abolish cost sharing charges in hospital. Women walked for days to join the Kaabong Strike, defying the most extreme poverty which forces women and girls to walk for hours and dig for water which is not even safe. “We do work endlessly caring for families, baring children yet on empty stomachs. Drought has caused a lot of suffering, especially to breastfeeding mothers, the aged, the disabled and infants, and instead money which would have made our life easier is put on the military budget. Our survival is not an economic priority, so our survival work is not seen.”
Women and men were also involved in Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Niger, Nigeria, and Tanzania.
1500 people gathered in Kaabong, Uganda
In Asia, AUSTRALIA, CHINA, India, JAPAN, Bangladesh, NEW ZEALAND, PAKISTAN and the Philippines also took part.
In the USA the Strike focused on offices of killer corporations – Occidental Oil which slaughters Indigenous people in Colombia and destroys health and the environment; Bechtel which profiteers from water and from contracts to rebuild countries war has destroyed – and which is suing Bolivia for $25 million because a mass movement forced them to leave and give back the water they had privatized. In Los Angeles, film stars Ed Asner and Danny Glover, and Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic on whom the film “Born on the Fourth of July” with Tom Cruise is based, spoke at the rally.
Photos from Los Angeles, Minneapolis & Philadelphia
Women in CANADA also took part.
Los Angeles
Minneapolis
In London, ENGLAND, the Strike’s international nerve centre, we marched to the US Embassy, where a large crowd stood transfixed in the rain as a nine-year-old girl performed her reggae song “We Don’t Want No More War”. A Native American woman from Women of Colour WinWages denounced the $900 billion squandered annually on military budgets mainly by the US, while Native Americans there live on reservations with no clean water or electricity. Iraqi women described the horrors of half a million children dying as a result of sanctions and depleted uranium weapons. A refugee from Eritrea said that women and children are the majority of victims of armed conflict, and 80% of displaced people, yet asylum seekers are treated as “bogus” and deported. The mother of a young man killed on a building site denounced the low value placed on human life in peace and war. Women from Greenham Common, the famous Peace Camp, revealed how they defeated the US cruise missile base with direct action. Women with disabilities and others protested at benefits being cut to pay for war. Women from military families, lesbian women, sex workers… each gave their reasons for opposing war.
In IRELAND women from the North joined women from Galway in a caravan to Shannon airport to “globalise neutrality”. Ireland is constitutionally a neutral country, so allowing US planes to refuel at Shannon on their way to Iraq is illegal.
In Barcelona, SPAIN, there were activities from 12 noon to midnight in the main square: performances, a press conference and Speakout (Asamblea) of women from many different sectors – including widows who are campaigning to regain their full pension. The city council offered free childcare and paid for many of the day’s expenses. The star of pop group Amparanoia participated all day.
In MACEDONIA, a network of 60 women's organisations brought women to Veles where local people are confronting ecological devastation from a lead factory which has caused many deaths and disabilities especially among children.
Other countries included the Czech Republic, DENMARK, FRANCE, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, NePAL, Sweden and Switzerland.
Each Strike action was strengthened by every other and each acted on behalf of all of us against the genocidal government of the US, and others which support it.
International
Strike update, 8 March
International Strike report 2002