Striking together 2003: 
women of colour, Indigenous women, rural women, single mothers, domestic workers, street vendors, housewives, immigrants, nurses, teachers, older women, artists, girls, women with disabilities, lesbians, students, trade unionists, sex workers, women in religions . . .

ENGLAND   INDIA   IRELAND   NIGER   PERU   ARGENTINA   TRINIDAD & TOBAGO   UGANDA   GHANA   PHILIPPINES   NEPAL   CAMEROON   SPAIN   USA   COLOMBIA   GUYANA   MACEDONIA   OTHERS...

ENGLAND: London - This is the nerve centre of the Global Strike, where the Strike Call is issued, and information is gathered and translated into more than 20 languages. We also organise our own events. On Strike Day we marched to the US Embassy, where a large crowd stood transfixed in the rain as a nine-year-old performed her reggae song "We Don't Want No More War".

Iraqi women described the horrors of half a million children dying from depleted uranium weapons and US sanctions. A refugee from Eritrea said women and children are the majority of victims of armed conflict, and 80% of displaced people, yet asylum seekers are labelled "bogus" and deported. A Native American from Women of Colour in the Strike denounced the $900+ billion squandered annually on military budgets, mainly by the US, while Native Americans live on reservations with no clean water or electricity. The mother of a young man killed on a building site identified the low value placed on human life in peace and in war. Veterans of Greenham Common, the famous women's peace camp, revealed how they defeated the US cruise missile base with direct action - a potato in the exhaust can do wonders! Women with disabilities and others protested at benefits being cut to pay for war. Women from military families, lesbian women, sex workers, and the men from Payday who co-ordinate men's support for the Strike . . . each said why they opposed war.

INDIA
Chhattisgarh - The Chhattisgarh Women's Organisation's Strike was in three different places and lasted five days (7-11 March). It included anti-war actions. About 5,000 people attended each rally.The 2000 Strike video (in English) was shown in villages with electricity.On 10 March they met the Chief Minister and presented their demands: 
"Financial support for widows; women's schemes and policies to be adopted in all villages; land to women; equal ownership of land for husband and wife; all forms of atrocities against women: rape, demand of dowry, mental and physical torture must be stopped immediately and the culprits punished; equal wages; social security for those in need." 

IRELAND The constitution makes Ireland a neutral country, yet US war planes refuelled at Shannon on their way to Iraq. For two months women and men camped at the airport to stop the illegal refuelling. Some attacked the planes, forcing three carriers of troops to pull out for "security reasons"! One woman tried for criminal damage walked free when the jury refused to convict. (The government is now going for a retrial and the Strike is supporting her.)

On 8 March, women from the North joined women in the South in a caravan to Shannon to "Globalise Neutrality". Speak-outs in Galway and Ennis along the way. Co-ordinated by the Strike, it was supported by Mid-west Alliance Against Military Aggression (MAMA), Roma Women's Support Network, Women in Media and Entertainment, Clare Women's Network, Anarcho-Syndicalist Federation and its Women's Commission. County Clare Community Radio, Women's Commission Radio (Belfast) and KPFK (US) had live radio link-ups. 
Even the gardai (police) have been defending the right to demonstrate, allowing protesters to use the airport toilet and mother-and-baby facilities. 
The day the US and Britain attacked Iraq, there were actions all over Ireland women in Galway blocked the road with a huge Strike banner during a march that then occupied the offices of the governing party. 
Since then, the Strike in Galway has held a weekly Anti-Occupation Picket outside the main garda station - all women welcome to speak out. Their call for the army and the gardai to refuse to participate in war crimes, and for the military budget to be invested in caring, has been taken up by others in the movement. 
When Bush and Blair tried to hijack the peace process in the North, women and kids in Galway joined the protest and blockaded the street with the Strike banner.

NIGER
Niamey - Action pour Femmes Handicappées, a women with disabilities organization, launched the Strike with a march. They wrote to their government and to UNICEF protesting that women's work is undervalued and unpaid, either with food, access to drinking water, wheelchairs or tricycles, and that development programmes, far from benefiting women, have sometimes made their situation worse. 

PERU Puno - March and assembly of Aymara and Quechua women from rural communities who travelled to the capital of the province. They got media coverage for their demands: Fair prices for our agricultural produce. Free schooling, health, water and electricity. Maternity security. The right to exist as Indigenous people and be legally recognised by the state and by the international community. The right to our culture, to speak and be educated in our own language. State protection, especially for those in vulnerable situations. Lower salaries for congresspeople, ministers and local and national state functionaries to address the struggle against poverty. No privatisation of our resources such as water and electricity.

Lima - For 25 years the Domestic Workers Centre (CCTH), which co-ordinates the Strike, has been fighting for domestic workers to have the same legal rights as other waged workers. With their Bill, the workers would have won (among other rights) a minimum monthly wage of $117. "We identify with the demands of the Strike because we are exploited, discriminated against and deprived of our rights. There are 500,000 domestic workers in Peru and 80% are immigrants from the Andean regions, suffering physical, psychological and sexual abuse, especially the girls."

7 March: Event at the Ministry for Women: Homage to grassroots leaders. 
8 March: Participation with feminist organisations in the Song to Life. 
9 March: Activities with huge participation of domestic workers and other grassroots sectors. 
Although Congres did not pass CCTH's Bill, on 18 June they did pass a law which for the 
first time entitles workers to some important benefits: the right to paid time off on all holidays,
double pay for working on national holidays and Christmas; compensation if laid off equal to 
half a month's wages per year of service. 
In Bolivia domestic workers have won a similar law.

ARGENTINA  Santa Fe - SAC (the Housewives Trade Union), which co-ordinates the Strike, and the Red Interbarrial de Mujeres (Interneighbourhood Women's Network) ask: "Do you think the war is far away? Do you think the scandal and 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 kill more women, children and men elsewhere.  "The governments of our countries are servants of those who govern the world: Bush and Co. That's why they tell us: "There's no money for teachers' wages, for mothers, for disabled people, no money for hospitals and for better wages for nurses, no money for those who suffer violence, for pensions for housewives, for older people, for decent housing, for food security. Our priorities are 'too expensive'; they prefer the murder of other human beings."

At 10 am, 300 women blockaded the city centre. In the front of the march was a big placard and a huge world on women's shoulders carried by a horse and cart decorated with flowers. Wide planks were put across the roads saying: "Our tables are empty except for the bread that women bake." Statements from different neighbourhoods were read out. There were many brooms and placards. 
Then the police came to evict us. We decided to stay anyway and placed our anti-war placards on the big cannon in the square. 
We ended at our Centre with surprise refreshments and the inevitable sausage roll which the men had prepared while we marched. Events in Rosario, Reconquista. 

TRINIDAD & TOBAGO
Arima - The call from the National Union of Domestic Employees (NUDE) declared: "Put your brooms and mops outside the front door. Women in the trade unions, who often carry the load of unwaged on top of low waged work, use the Global Women's Strike to advance your cause as workers outside the home and inside. The Strike is trying to reverse the priorities of feminists, away from the self-advancement of individuals and back to the advancement of women from the bottom up." 
NUDE's headquarters, and a tent rented for the event, overflowed with grassroots women who came for the speakout. They demanded that the Minister of Labour recognise domestic workers as workers in law and in practice. 

UGANDA Karamoja - The Kaabong Women's Organization (KWO), Strike co-ordinators, are based in Karamoja, a region devastated by warfare, global warming and resulting famines. Women walk miles to dig for water. Their Strike mobilisation has won the abolition of "cost sharing" charges in hospital. This year they achieved an unprecedented gathering of 1500 people from every sector of society, attracting the support of women and men in positions of power.  For months they mobilised villages throughout the region, putting on plays, exhibitions, songs and concerts about women's hard work.  A week before 8th March people started arriving at the Women's Centre that KWO has built with their own hands. To get there, many "walked for days on empty stomachs, drinking dirty water but knowing very well that they are part of the Global Women's Strike."

The Federation of Uganda Women Business Organisations, Industry & Agriculture participated with a "demonstration of indigents, widowed by the continuous wars, disabled economy and persons physically, sale of all our national assets through privatisation, liberalisation to abuse the poor."  They demand that "The government returns the Farmers House to farmers of which women comprise 85%. Women need agricultural implements and peace from government, not assiduous wars and the collapse of women's food security."

On 7th March single mothers, nurses, head prefects of four Kaabong schools and local government officials met to finalise the demands: 

• Invest in Caring not Killing - Women say NO to Wars.
• Women need food security and accessible clean water.
• Value women's caring work. Eradicate poverty/famine and diseases among rural women.
• Stop domestic violence and respect our rights.
• Give us essentials instead of buying arms to kill our children - we live in terror.

On the 8th, from 7am a loudhailer roamed Kaabong town announcing the Strike. Marching from their Centre, KWO were joined by St. Monica, KARWA, Jie Labwor and Karanga Women's Groups, Napore Youth Group, primary and secondary school pupils, policewomen, men and adult literacy students from Alternative Basic Education in Karamoja (ABEK) which teaches literacy to all ages. 
Everybody sang and chanted, marching through the main road and back to the town hall. The guest of honour, a woman Member of Parliament, arrived chanting: "No domestic violence from today." The woman MC told men: "Women are builders of dwelling huts, carers, food providers, breastfeeding mothers - everybody should say NO to domestic violence and NO War." 
Every 30 minutes there were speeches, plays, songs. Grace Loumo of KWO said: 
"The majority of women all over the world are given a raw deal besides the severe hardship they go through, domestic violence, abuse of women's rights and many others. Most of our communities believe that whatever development is given to a man automatically a woman benefits. This is complete NO. We are in the villages as worriers, kraal leaders' wives/daughters, traditional birth attendants, community health educators, and mothers, and our voices are loud and clear. Today we are about 1,500 women, children and men, it's indeed a great day joining other countries." 
A Member of Parliament for Jie county served food to the women and gave water to wash their hands after eating. Impressed by the acceptance of such a powerful man, other men promised to do the same with their wives and value their work. 
The day ended with drama, exhibition, songs and speeches, and a poem from a girl student. At 7.30 pm there was a party in the Catholic Mission Hall. 

PHILIPPINES
Baguio City - Women on the Run, forced to earn their families' daily survival by illegally selling fruits and vegetables on the street, had a "No work strike on women's day." 
A man from Payday men's network had told them there was a campaign for wages for housework: "We told him with no reservations we wanted in."
From 4 am to 11 pm, women are always on the run: "We do our routine work of fetching water, washing the family's dirty clothes, cooking the family's food for the day, preparing what the children need for school, and other work . . . running from the house to earn a living . . . when the police come, we just carry our goods in the basket on our heads and run . . . later we run to the market to buy more goods and then home to cook, clean and care for our children." 
They are demanding times when they can legally sell their goods. 
SHES (Society for Human and Ecological Security): "Together with other NGOs here like Huwomanity and People's Action, we continue to carry on with the campaign to get the unwaged work that women do to be given its just value. Your e-mails serve as a reference for us . . . We have devoted the whole of March to the protest against the US-led war in Iraq and against our own government's US-dictated total war policy on the insurgency movement here. Women in the grassroots . . . are giving all the support they could to the protest. They have understood clearly why the campaign to end the wars and to use the money allocated for these wars for services to sustain life and not to snuff it, is not just a demand but a matter of right."

NEPAL In this war-torn country newspapers reported: "The normal quiet of midday on Saturday . . . was shattered as a large crowd of women and children took to the street and bashed away on pans and plates . . . The Global Women's Strike had arrived in Kathmandu." Brought to Nepal by an Irish campaigner attending a conference of the alternative radio network, the Strike was organised by Prisoners Assistance with women in prison, their children, and their support group.

CAMEROON Douala (Dept. of Wouri) The Women Public Employees Group of Wouri (GFECOP) merged the Strike with Pan African Women's Day on 31 July. They held a protest march with 32 organisations in solidarity with women in the Venezuelan revolution. The themes: "No to war - invest in caring for people, not in killing them. No to violence against African women. Yes to peace in our country and security for our families.We support the women of Venezuela."

Their conference condemned wars and all violence against women - economic, social, cultural, religious. Women have not benefited from their government's oil revenues. In towns, women earn on average $45 a month, less in rural areas. They do most of the agricultural work and look after their families. Yet single mothers are still looked down on. 
GFECOP works with women doing subsistence farming and town women in the informal sector. Its network has members in Congo Central Africa, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Congo, Sao Tome and Chad. The Kaabong Women's Organisation, Uganda, also took part.

Amparo Sanchez, star of pop group Amparanoia, told the crowd why she supports the Strike. Music, dance, theatre and circus performances followed.
The yearly International Women's Day march joined the Strike in the Square, bringing the numbers to 4,000. The evening opened with announcements of Strike actions in other countries. When the Strike co-ordinator called for the return of military budgets, people clapped enthusiastically and chanted: "No war! General Strike!" 
Videos were shown on a big screen, first of the Global Strike 2000, then of police violently evicting anti-war squatters. Squatter women called for "War to be evicted from the world." 
The city council provided free childcare and paid for many of the day's expenses.

USA
The anti-war movement is massive but largely hidden by a hostile media. Strike actions in at least a dozen cities across the country, this year did break through the media's pro-war censorship, and publicised women's actions and views against war. 

Los Angeles - About 4,000 strikers held a huge anti-war march that included many mothers and children; Hollywood stars Ed Asner, Dave Clennon and Danny Glover; and Ron Kovic, famous Vietnam veteran who wrote Born on the 4th of July which became a Tom Cruise film! They raised the roof in front of: Occidental Oil, which has been slaughtering Indigenous people in Colombia, while destroying health and the environment; and Starbucks with their ties to Israeli genocide. And finally a stop at the Veterans Cemetery to say "No more body bags." 
Milwaukee (Wisconsin) - The Welfare Warriors organised a "Moms on Strike" Bus Tour. In a raging blizzard, they stopped at sites where mothers receiving welfare are forced into unwaged and low waged work, at a military weapons manufacturer, and at government buildings. 

Philadelphia - A multi-racial crowd of 300, all ages, on foot, in wheelchairs, on bikes or buses "caravanned" down a main street to City Hall chanting "Women Say No War: Invest in Caring Not Killing." Onlookers cheered us on and honked their horns, and shoppers came out to show support. Speakers included a mother whose daughter is a US soldier, and women residents of the inner city who pointed to desperately needed resources going up in smoke in Iraq. 

San Francisco - Speakout at Bechtel Corporation which profiteers from privatisation of water and wins contracts to rebuild countries destroyed by war. It is laying a pipeline across Afghanistan, has built almost half the world's nuclear power plants, and is suing Bolivia for $25 million because a mass movement against water privatisation forced them to return their water and get out. The demonstration stopped at the Venezuelan Consulate to recognise the revolution, and marched to a closing rally & speakout in the downtown shopping area, pressing for a boycott of Israeli products.

Northampton (Massachusetts) - Women's Congress for Peace went on Strike on 5 March (a student strike was already scheduled). They urged all women to take time to gather in front of the courthouse. A Strike letter went to downtown businesses, and asked for childcare facilities to close by 4.30 pm to allow teachers and mothers to participate. 

Fort Wayne (Indiana) - Women encircled the local courthouse. 

Salt Lake City (Utah) - 6 March peace vigil organised by People for Peace and Justice, with the World Bank Bonds Boycott Organisation. 7 March - Presentation on the Children of Ethiopia Education Fund + films; 8 March - Teach-in and Women's Day Festival/Fair with dancers, speakers and poetry reading.

Santa Cruz (California) - event by homeless women, Green Eye Records Foundation.

Washington DC -The national Women's March for Peace and Justice on 8 March endorsed the Strike. 

Yellow Springs (Ohio) - Signatures for the Strike petition collected during all-day anti-war teach-in at Antioch College. Classes were cancelled.

COLOMBIA
Bogotá - Diálogo Mujer and Mujeres Autoras Actoras de Paz put forward the slogan "Invest in caring not killing - in this way we will demonstrate in public places and attract the support of many other women who despite differing views can unite from the bottom of their hearts, and begin to influence the demands that come out of the different events." They delivered petitions to the government.

GUYANA Georgetown - On 8 October 2001 the women of Red Thread stood in front of the US embassy denouncing the bombing of Afghanistan.  On 8 March 2003, in the face of unprecedented levels of tension between people of African and Indian descent, 500 women, including indigenous women, and some men, marched through their communities, and rallied 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 that day. Co-ordinated by Red Thread, the Strike included Women across Differences, Women Against Violence Everywhere, student women and media women, and stated the following:"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."

MACEDONIA Veles The Union of Women's Organisations of Macedonia (UWOM), a network of 64 independent organisations with members from various ethnic, national and religious groups, circulated the Strike petition. On 8 March, they brought women from all over Macedonia to Veles, where people are protesting ecological devastation from a lead factory that has caused many deaths and disabilities, especially of children. Government representatives, the Minister for Ecology, the Mayor and many reporters were present. They heard slogans such as Life Without Pollution.

Other participants in 2003: 
CHINA The Strike petition is being circulated in Chinese. 
CZECH REPUBLIC, Prague The 8th of March Feminist Group organized a public concert in the Square of Peace. 
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO The National Women Nurses Committee (SOLSICO), part of the Strike since 2001, demanded equal pay, maternity protection, and valuing women's work at home as well as in waged jobs.
ECUADOR, Chimborazo "La Minga" Indigenous Women's Association takes part.
GERMANY Berlin - Women from different groups organised a demonstration in the city centre: "The time has come to fight more vehemently and more consistently against wars and the arms industry . . . How many of us are to be loving housewives but do not even have a house?" Later they met and ate with the refugee women's group, and went together to demonstrate against growing repression in the name of anti-terror security. 
GREECE The Non-Aligned Women's Movement circulated the Strike call among women's organisations, government units, the media, and to Greek and Turkish communities in other European countries. The Institute of Equality signed the petition. They also circulated widely the appeal in support of women in the Venezuela revolution. The Strike was greeted warmly in the media.
HUNGARY Budapest Strike demands were read out at a march women called against war in Iraq. 
ITALY Rome Demonstration in front of the Senate. Tuscany The Strike call was read out at a Women's Day event. Verona Housewives organisation OIKIA took part. 
KENYA Kimilili Integrated Development Education Program incorporated Strike information in their workshops, seminars and open meetings. 
NICARAGUA Leon The Women's Network Against Violence announced joining the world campaign to Invest in Caring Not Killing at the 15 February antiwar protests. 
NIGERIA Lagos The Women's Education and Mothering Resource Centre introduced a small credit loans project for women. They forged fronts for an annual Strike based on a yearly assessment of how the government has or has not taken care of women's demands.
TAIWAN Taipei The Awakening Foundation, the Collective of Sex Workers and Supporters and many other women's groups staged an anti-war protest outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in solidarity with Iraqi women. 
TANZANIA A man who teaches "outcast children" publicised the Strike.

The Strike at the international solidarity forum in Venezuela, INAMUJER April 2003. Nina López (England) and Margaret Prescod (USA, KPFK radio presenter)

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