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Global Women’s Strike round up 4 March 2005 |
Argentina,
Santa Fe Sindicato
de Amas de Casa (the Housewives Union) says,
“From 11am to 6pm on 8 March a lorry with loud hailers will go around
18 neighbourhoods, stopping at street corners and main intersections to
broadcast the Strike themes. We’ll
ring bells and invite women to join us at a meeting point in each
neighbourhood where we will perform a play on housewives’ work, wages
and pensions. We will call
people out with drums, and ask women to list what they want to ‘sweep
away’ with their brooms. At
7pm we will rally in front of government house joining the women from
the Torches March who every week demand that those responsible for the
2003 flood be brought to justice. We will read the ‘demands of the brooms’ and march around
the square.”
BELARUS,
Minsk
A woman in Indymedia-Belarus is translating and posting Strike
material in Belarusian and Russian on their websites, spreading Strike
information among a community of activists, and considering possible
“political actions here in Belarus on IWDay”.
May be “a concert, party or seminar”.
Activists’ Saturday video club to show Strike films about
revolutionary Venezuela. BOLIVIA
The
Federacion de Mujeres de El
Alto
who went on hunger strike on 8 March 2004, is co-ordinating the Strike
this year. They’re
involved in massive protests against water privatization as the people
of El Alto mobilise to drive out the water company.
They got Bechtel out of Cochabamba in 2002, El Alto is next. President of
Central de Mujeres Bolivia (CEMUJ-B) sends sisterly greetings in this
movement to make visible women’s work and unequal working conditions,
both in production and in service industries. Thanks to the Strike for
putting them in contact with other women of the whole world working
towards the same goal -- the right to live in dignity. CANADA,
Victoria Status
of Women Action Group write, “We will be reading the demands of the
Strike at our rally on March 5 in solidarity with other visionary women
around the world. The women
in BC are struggling but we are determined not to let the death-cycle
economy destroy our lives. We
are tired of being penalized for doing work that is essential for the
economic system. We demand a Livable Income for Everyone because the world has
enough to Share! ” CYPRUS
women
may hire the Strike exhibition. CZECH
REPUBLIC, Prague
The
Feminist Group of 8th of March, which joined the Strike for
the first time last year, is organizing a concert and distributing
leaflets, etc., on the “Namesti Miru” (Square of Peace) on March 8th.
The PR Director at the Gender Studies Center will visit at least two TV
stations explaining that IWD is very important worldwide and that it is
not a communist event – a fact which she says the Czech media has been
strangely censoring, so information about events round the world is
particularly important for them. ECUADOR,
Quito “Your letter
will frame how we participate on 8 March. We’re circulating it widely
amongst women & women’s organisations.” GERMANY,
Berlin
Women’s Forum will give the Strike a presence at 8 March events,
including an outdoor event in the Alexanderplatz focusing on chemicals
in women’s bodies. They
will call for corporations to take responsibility for the poisons
imposed on us and our children, including in Bhopal, (see India):
“Put
Warren Anderson [Chief
Executive of Union Carbide] into prison
as an example of irresponsible
managers who make decisions that only
look for profit . . . Implement mechanisms to hold
corporations accountable for the deeds they
are responsible for, wherever on the planet they were done, so that
the people damaged can get effective help
and compensation quickly!” Wheelchairs
for Africa is taking
a bus through Europe and Africa bringing wheelchairs “direct to
contacts to make sure people actually get what they want and not . . .
just through donations to big NGOs”.
A Global Women’s Strike banner in three languages is on the
bus, plus videos and other materials to publicise the Strike along the
way. In Barcelona they aim
to meet the sisters touring from Venezuela (see Spain).
GREECE
The
Non-Aligned Women’s Movement in Athens will as always
publicise the Strike in all media, and the Strike Call will be published
in their bulletin, Telesilla. GUYANA
In
the wake of horrendous floods, the Strike breaks new ground in insisting
that the impact of “natural
disasters”
on women’s
workload be acknowledged by government, NGOs and the whole society. The
floods were the result of unprecedented rainfall caused by global
warming – 60 instead of seven inches – and a drainage and irrigation
system weakened by negligence and corruption.
Crossroads Women’s
Centre struggled under 1½
to 2 feet of water. GWS
members suffered even greater devastation in their homes. This year on
12 March, the Strike will host an extraordinary coming together of
Afro-Guyanese, Indo-Guyanese, Mixed and Indigenous women from all
sectors and backgrounds who will speak out and spell out just how much
every community depends entirely first on women’s survival work and
then on the “rebuilding”
we do. The preparatory
meeting brought 230 women to the Centre (which is still drying out)! INDIA Chhattisgarh
Women’s Organisation is giving out leaflets and visiting other
women’s organisations in different parts of India in preparation for 8
March. There will be a big
demonstration in Pithora of 4 – 5,000 women. Bhopal
Women’s Organisation have written saying the Strike will help them
change their lives. They
say the government is not prioritising clean water, which is still toxic
following the horrendous midnight poison gas leak from the Union
Carbide’s (now Dow) factory 20 years ago. Survivors’ hospitals are
now being merged with health departments, taking away resources from the
holocaust survivors. Many women suffer with divorce, and are left to
look after children with nothing.
IRELAND,
County Clare Stalls
with Invest in Caring not Killing petition and information about the
Strike at “Celebrating Creative Women” IWD event 8 March. There are other events in Ireland but we have no details. JAPAN
New
Japan Women's Association has again requested a message from the Strike
to be read at the big yearly rally in Tokyo organised by women's
organizations on the theme: ”No to war, Cut military budget and use
the money for people's well being . . .”
This year they are mobilising to defend the Japanese
constitution’s renunciation of war – which both government and
opposition threaten to remove. KENYA
KIDEP are using Strike documents in their “development
education awareness creation workshops in the villages. For us
this is a continuous campaign on many issues that face women, girls and
the marginalized persons of our community.”
They will be speaking about the meaning of 8th March, gender and
children's rights, and “will
definitely raise awareness about the themes of the Women's Strike ‘End
poverty & war, Invest in caring not killing, A living wage for all
our work and pay equity in the Global market’, relating these topics
to our situation in western Kenya.” MACEDONIA’s
Union of Women's Organizations – UWOM –
are planning a performance and demonstration on ‘A Living Wage for All
our Work', specially related with ‘Pay Equality in the Global
Market’. NEW
ZEALAND Strike
demands will be raised by supporters active in IWDay events organised by
Auckland IWD Committee, including a 7 March forum on the poverty
of women and children, and a march and rally on 8 March, to increase
benefits and social spending (“from free childcare and decent housing
to raising incomes for caregivers etc”), for pay equity, against
violence against women and children, and to oppose the "War on
Terror" and repressive legislation. The DPB (Domestic
Purposes Benefit) Action Group for single mothers, and members of
UNITE!, a union for low-paid workers, unemployed and beneficiaries, are
opposing attempts to push single mothers off benefits and out to waged
work. PERU
The
Centro de Capacitacion para Trabajadoras del Hogar – domestic
workers’ centre – in Lima will co-ordinate.
They will be part of a mobilisation of grassroots women’s
organizations in which every organization will raise its demands.
There will be a showing of the Strike videos on the Venezuelan
revolution. They intend to
issue a joint leaflet with the Indigenous Centro Cultural Aymara Pacha
Aru which has been co-ordinating the Strike in Puno. “The
Global Women’s Strike Group (a consortium of several NGOs and
grassroots women’s organizations) shall kick off our women’s month
program with the following on International Women’s Day: ·
Launch our campaigns challenging laws
criminalizing the poor. The first would be the anti-vending law which
makes it illegal to sell along sidewalks which most poor women do to
earn money to support their families. The campaign shall be spearheaded
by Women on the Run, the Urban Poor Women’s Group and WHORE (Women in
Hellwork Organising for their Rights and Empowerment). ·
Bring to the streets the women’s
campaign to reclaim their community water resources from the mining
companies.” For
the rest of March they will continue campaigning against debt servicing
but “refocus it along the Global Women’s Strike perspective
connecting it to living wage and providing women enough resources.”
They will show the Strike’s videos to popularize the Venezuelan
Revolution, which is not known in the Philippines, and the Refusing to
Kill (RTK) video to see the possibilities of RTK work there.
Showings will be to organisations and to student groups – and,
together with ‘Fahrenheit
911’, on local TV channels! They
will hold a Media Forum, a workshop for journalists, on the Strike
demands, “global pay equity and a living wage for all”.
Meanwhile, “the youth theatre group will visit schools to
present their play depicting the experience of the poor – mostly women
– on how laws are used against them and how women are fighting
back.” POLAND
The Strike is organising a demonstration “with women from as many
different backgrounds as possible”. During a week of action
before the international anti-war marches on 19-20 March, they will show
the Strike video and hold a meeting on women organising against war.
An interview about the Strike will be published in women’s
magazines. SPAIN,
Barcelona 8
March
Strike and Bolivarian Assembly of Catalunya contingent in the annual 8
March demonstration of thousands of women. 10
March
first event in European tour of Nora
Castañeda, President of Venezuela’s Women’s Development Bank
(Banmujer), and Angélica Alvarez, Banmujer’s Promoter Co-ordinator in
Bolivar state, at the University of Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona - organised
by Cátedra of UNESCO. 12
March
A night of
demands and celebration:
End Poverty
and War –
Invest in Caring Not Killing! A Living Wage for All our Work
& Pay Equity in the Global Market.
Grassroots women speak out: mothers, housewives, domestic
workers, immigrant women, women with disabilities, widows, squatters,
teachers, lesbian women, sex workers, women defending the right to
demonstrate . . . Nora and Angélica speak on Creating a caring
economy in Venezuela and defending the achievements of the
revolution there – women have won recognition of housework as an
economic activity which creates wealth; housewives have the right to
social security; woman-headed families have priority in the
redistribution of land. With
Nina Lopez, from the international Strike coordination, London. Rappers,
pop and rock groups, dance and drums - African, Catalan, Philippine and
vegetarian food - Decorated with banners in six languages. SWITZERLAND Berne,
a prayer group is considering holding a Strike event. UGANDA
Kaabong
Women’s Group says: “Every International Women’s Day, we join all
women in over 60 countries since 2000 to demand and say together the
burning issues women face especially grassroots women e.g we
need accessible clean water, free medical care, food security, an end to
domestic violence and all sorts of discriminations against women.
This year KWGO .
. . demands END POVERTY AND WAR. Women, our children, disabled
people are the direct sufferers, yet we are the care givers who
struggle every single day to sustain life, working the hardest for
least. For example the Northern Uganda War which has been there for 19
years has killed many women and children and million [of] shillings
[have been] used but the war still continues as if there is a lot of
business going on by killing us. The Strike always brings us women
together across many divisions. It begins with those of us who are
invisible as mothers. Since the Strike has grown stronger, we call upon
you to join hands together for the strike and we UK,
London A
series of events, culminating in the tour of Nora and Angélica (see Spain,
above), who arrive in London on 14 March and will speak in London,
Manchester, Leicester, Sheffield, and Scotland (Edinburgh). European
tour organised by the Strike, also includes Austria and Italy. 5
March, fundraiser of All African Women’s Group, women
asylum seekers at Crossroads Women’s Centre, with food, music and
dance. The new exhibition
of women’s Strike actions in 20 countries opens at the Centre. 8
March Open House at Centre from 11am.
Local shops, cafes, and sports centres provide free or discounted
services for women “in recognition of women’s work raising children
and caring for and defending everyone in the community.”
1-3 pm picket at Kenya High Commission in London in support of
women marching to the British High Commission in Nairobi, Kenya to
protest 30 years of rape by the British army. Organised by African
Liberation Support Campaign Network, Black Women’s Rape Action
Project, Women Against Rape, and All African Women’s Revolutionary
Union. 12
March Payday, a
multi-racial network of men which organises men’s participation in the
Strike, presents their new film Refusing to Kill -- women and men
from around the world refusing to be torturers, rapists and killers for
the military. Special guests: Rose Gentle, founder of Military
Families Against the War and mother of Gordon Gentle killed in Iraq, and
Sue Webster, wife of Abdullah, a US soldier currently serving a 14-month
sentence for refusing to serve in Iraq.
The
Asian Grassroots Workers Collective of
domestic workers is undertaking a “Gift to Women for Women Project”
– a demand to employers to make International Women’s Day a paid
holiday to carers, nannies and housekeepers as their way of expressing
gratitude to the mothers, sisters, wives and daughters whose caring work
has made it possible for them to be where they are now.
This project is endorsed by the Philippine Embassy, UK.
They are also organising video showings of the Strike’s
Venezuela video and of “Refusing to Kill” and strategising on ways
to get domestic work recognised as work, thus entitling them to
workers’ rights. Wales,
Cardiff
5 March, Global Women’s Strike workshop at Queer Mutiny’s
video and music event. Drefach Felindre 6 March, Speak and
discussion on Global Women’s Strike and grassroots women organising in
Venezuela, organised by Bro Emlyn Peace and Justice. USA “Gathering
Our Forces Against Poverty and War” 5 March in Philadelphia (Tabernacle
United Church), 8 March in San Francisco (outside City
Hall) and 10 March in Los Angeles
(outside Federal Building). Rallies will hear
about efforts to get welfare and other payment for caring work including
the justice work of mothers, daughters, partners; pay equity; and
refusing the military as an alternative to prison or destitution.
They say, “FROM IRAQ TO HAITI TO PALESTINE, NO US WAR,
OCCUPATION, RAPE & OTHER TORTURE!”
San Francisco Strikers will also press for implementation
of the City resolution prioritizing the protection of sex workers over
prosecution and jail, and for shutting down Bechtel; Los Angeles for
subsidized housing, saving King/Drew Hospital, and protection of Native
lands and health and environment; Philadelphia will hear voter
registration workers speak out against US election fraud.
“A Living Wage for All our Work” and “Pay Equity in the
Global Market” follow-on events will focus on prisoners working in
sweatshops and providing services like call centres, while corporations
make millions from their near-slave labour.
LA will march to Twin Towers Jail, San Francisco to SF
City Jail, to “Speak out and make noise against the Criminalization of
Survival” like locking up women for crimes of poverty where they lose
child custody. They will
highlight rape and other torture in jails and prisons, unfair trials and
uncaring lawyers, and will put forward local demands.
Philadelphia on 8 March will “Strike
Against Racist Criminal ‘Injustice’ System – Our Children Don’t
Want their Mothers in Jail” – with a speakout
at Roundhouse (police HQ), stop at the Federal Detention Centre and
rally at the Federal Building, on the same themes.
LA and Philadelphia will present a Women’s Award
to honor Mumia Abu-Jamal. + Video premieres 5 March: Oakland
“The Bolivarian revolution: Enter the Oil Workers”, Philadelphia Payday
showing of “Refusing to Kill” (see London above). San
Diego The
Old Women’s Project, an activist group, endorses the Strike for 2005. Santa
Cruz 8 March Women's
History Month Event.
In solidarity with the “Global
Women’s General Walkout in 50
countries” women “will gather in circle
with all ages and backgrounds to hold a sacred
space of honoring women’s work,
both paid and unpaid. We’ll bring
attention to the fact that women do two
thirds of the world’s work at one
third the pay, and we’ll remember our
human entry to the planet earth through the
womb of women . . .
We’ll
envision self-determined women whose
children never leave for war again . .
. We hope to make our local focus on the
United Farm Workers and women farm workers in the Santa Cruz County
area.” VENEZUELA
An article about the Strike in VEA Newspaper. Actions to be announced.
Strike will feature in April anniversary events celebrating the
reversal of the coup in 2002. ZAMBIA
A 23-year-old Zambian
woman working for an NGO who received information about the Strike wrote
asking what she can do. “Though
initiatives like this Strike have never seriously taken place in my
country, I know that as long as I live and keep quiet, I will always be
in danger of being taken as a lesser being. We have women being
subjected to all forms of brutality and ill-treatment all over the world
and I think the greater evil is letting this go on.
We can’t sit back and wait for things to change.”
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