Since the Global Women’s Strike was launched in 2000, women in over 70 countries have taken action together to demand that the world INVEST IN CARING NOT KILLING. The Strike on 8 March this year advances radical changes taking place everywhere, beginning with the most massive movement against war the world has ever seen. With escalating military spending led by the US government, this movement helps clarify the urgency of reclaiming military budgets for the community – and first of all to women the carers! This demands “a total change of priorities so life and the care of it once more becomes society’s priority.”

The Strike also demands pay equity for all in the global market; food security for breastfeeding mothers; non-payment of 'Third World debt'; accessible clean water, healthcare, housing, transport, literacy; protection & asylum from all violence & persecution; freedom of movement.

Strike reports in the latest Strike Journal show how the network is expanding. For example, in the Karamoja region of Uganda, which suffers constant warfare and famines, where women must walk miles to dig for water, 75% of Uganda’s budget goes to the military. Kaabong Women’s Organisation brought together an unprecedented assembly of 1500 people from every sector of society demanding change. They write: “We have suffered all types of 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 the military budget. Our survival is not an economic priority, so our survival work is not seen.”

Women of many faiths and no faith are active in the Strike, which some Church women describe as: “A women led action to highlight the essential role women play in the nurturing of faith. The hierarchy within religions means that whilst women do much of the day-to-day work it is mostly male clerics and priests who are seen to represent the religion. We oppose fundamentalism in any faith because it is based on promoting prejudice, discrimination and injustice and is enforced by terror. Tragically many millions have suffered from the sexism, racism and homophobia that has been practised in the name of religion, including in religions not considered fundamentalist.”

Since the bombing of Afghanistan and then Iraq, the Women’s Strike, and the men who are committed to it, have been joined by others in a regular Community Picket in Parliament Square, working with the two-year 24-hour peace camp there. We bear witness and save lives by giving a voice to the unrepresented, for example the Iraqi Women’s League: “We fear the threat of fundamentalist religious movements which an occupying army inspires . . The Iraqi people have not been liberated by the US. We have been subject to a barbaric attack . . . ’Reconstruction of Iraq’ is now a euphemism for the daylight robbery of our resources.”

The 5th Global Women's Strike is bound to be our best so far. Please get in touch to be involved and for a copy of the Invest in Caring Not Killing petition or the Strike journal reporting the many Strike initiatives around the world. Men’s participation is welcome – contact Payday@paydaynet.org, and see refusing to kill website: www.refusingtokill.net

Global Women’s Strike, Crossroads Women’s Centre, 230a Kentish Town Road, London, NW5 2AB. Tel (minicom/voice) 020 7482 2496

Email: womenstrike8m@server101.com

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