Why we strike - international highlights Letter from women in Baguio City, Philippines  "Even before the family wakes up, we are already out running from the house to earn a living. We earn the family's daily subsistence from selling fruits and vegetables in the city markets streets and other busy streets of the city. The work we do is illegal from the government's eyes. You see you need a permit and to rent a stall in the market where you can display your goods to be allowed to sell." Eritrean women in London say: As a mother, it’s the hardest thing to have to leave your children and loved ones in behind. We are suffering all the time not knowing if they are alive... For those with families still living in Eritrea, you fear asking in case your family is put in more danger because the authorities find out that you are in another country seeking asylum.  1000’s of families were forced to leave Eritrea.  Many died on the way from serious illnesses . . . It is too painful to speak about what people suffered. A Black great-grandmother from a military family in the US says: In World War II, Black people were called on to fight but did not want to go, because we did not have our rights in the US.  My four brothers went and were destroyed by war.  One came back with a terrible drinking problem because of what he suffered in war.  They all came back to no job, or any rubbish jobs.  Women in Guyana will strike because:  We are tired. Tired of the work of holding our families and communities together or if we can't, of moving and re-settling them. We are tired of the wars inside Guyana... Every piece of what they call "collateral damage" is some mother's daughter, some mother's son. An Iraqi woman in Britain says: I am against Blair and Bush attacking Iraq because it will destroy children's lives and many other lives . . .the quality of the earth and people will have nothing, the food will not grow and people will starve. After the Gulf war people couldn’t use the water for many many years.  Kaabong Women's Group, Uganda say: War, War, War, we have suffered all types of Wars, not even a decade elapses without Wars. Innocent hungry women and children killed . . . We do work endlessly caring for families, bearing 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 military budget. Our survival is not an economic priority, so our survival work is not seen. Latin American and Caribbean women say: We are women from Latin America and the Caribbean, Indigenous, Black, of mixed race and white, who have joined the call for the Global Women’s Strike on 8 March, which we are coordinating in our countries. We present this call as a continent because today more than ever our voices and our opposition to the genocidal policies of the IMF and World Bank, must be heard. Wages Due Lesbians: Women are the backbone of anti-war activism - it was mainly lesbian women who closed down the military base at Greenham... Lesbians and gays who fought to be “out” in the military now have to choose between caring and killing. Interview with a Palestinian woman who joined the Strike in London, England Women keep everything going by being very economical, very ecological, very clever in providing food and clothing and support, by demonstrating, by trying to protect their kids from being arrested. A Pakistani woman living in Britain says: In my country 65% of the budget goes to military expenditure, very little is left for women, children, health, education. Women's health is always at risk, literacy is very low for women and girls, and access to clean water, housing and other resources, very difficult.  Whichever party comes to power fails and falls into corruption, because the military is always in power.