Article by Women of Colour in the Global Women’s Strike for publication in CCRJ Social Justice Desk Newsletter

On 8 March, International Women’s Day, women in over 60 countries will again take all kinds of grassroots actions to demand together that society Invest in Caring Not Killing, and that the money squandered on war goes instead on our communities’ needs. The Global Women’s Strike has grown stronger over the past five years, especially in countries of the global South; women, and increasingly men, now take Strike action throughout the year. Working locally and across national boundaries with others in struggles for justice empowers us all.

Opposing war and ending poverty are inseparable.

The horrendous tsunami killed almost 300,000 people, but daily many thousands die from starvation, disease, global warming and war – all man-made disasters caused by the rule of money and the market. Governments and their beloved multinationals talk about ending poverty but they never mention giving us the money we need.

Women of colour work hardest for least: in the South we grow up to 80% of the food; in the North we defend our loved ones from racist attacks and other violence. If we are immigrants, we get the lowest wages, in the worst conditions, including being locked into bonded labour. Emigration is a last resort to escape destruction and war caused by the arms trade and multinationals exploiting resources, but asylum seekers are witch-hunted by the government and media not as the victims but the cause of low wages, bad housing and cuts, thus promoting racism, while resources and populations of the South continue to be robbed by Western capital.

The twin terrors of poverty and war are profitable, so it’s against the global market’s interest to end either. Only we ourselves, beginning with women the carers who struggle every day to sustain life, working the hardest for least, can make this life-saving change.

We are not asking for charity but demanding what we have earned: a Living Wage for all our Work, the theme of this year’s global actions. Waged workers are entitled to the same pay, women and men, wherever we are.

The Strike always brings women (and men) together across many divisions, beginning with those of us who are invisible as workers, from mothers and other caregivers; to subsistence, migrant and family farmers; to immigrants with or without papers, including people of all faiths and no faith, and others working for justice, whatever our sex, race or nationality.