A Call for 24 Hours of Feminist Solidarity Action around the world, June the 3rd
Being women is to live constantly in period of war. This sentence was repeatedly said during our 4th international action in 2015, by women when explaining the context in which they were living in their homes, territories and nations. During our 10th International Meeting in Maputo in October 2016 there was a consensus that violence and terror is spreading out around the world, very fast. Militarism and militarization of women’s daily lives has become a common trend everywhere.
From south to north, from east to west, women suffer the effects and consequences of territorial occupation by colonial imperialist regimes, subjugating the people to inhuman conditions, assassinations, traumatic incarcerations while the rest of the world are watching silently. That is war.
We are witnessing the rising of extreme-right governments in many countries around the world, pushing back rights gained over many decades of peoples’ struggles for justice, freedom and equality. On one hand they preach intolerance, hate and war against minority people, immigrants, blacks, indigenous and non conforming people. On the other hand, these governments are aggressively pushing forward more radical neoliberal agendas as they defend the interests of transnational corporations who supported their electoral campaigns.
We are facing new forms of colonialism, where those governments alongside with their Transnational Corporations (TNCs) invade nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America on the name of direct investments and development cooperation; they manipulate national governments whose elections they funded through aid mechanisms and on the umbrella of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and neoliberal policies. They grab land; they dispossess and displace families and entire communities from their livelihoods and from all natural resources that are essential for living. In these contexts, communities are emerging in extreme poverty, violence and fear about their present and future.
Women pay a high price while struggling to secure means of survival for their families as they get exploited with unpaid labor and many times they end on prostitution, early and forced marriages with a handicap future.
Militarization of our daily lives became a common trend all over the world. The super power nations produce armaments and sell to countries where they have strong economic interests. African nations are their preferential markets; especially West African countries and other countries as Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast and Mozambique. They stimulate debts by supplying weapons to national governments and rebel groups, which promote civil wars and terrorist attacks all over.
While people are fighting among themselves, TNCs intensify their extractive operations and the little money paid in form of taxes goes back to them in form of debt payments. In this context, national governments are lacking capacity to provide basic services, such as health, education, water and sanitation, housing, public transport, and living no room for processes of building democratic institutions. Women’s rights violations and general crimes are on the rise where justice systems are only defending and protecting interests of political elites and TNCs impunity. This is a form of war.
Democracy has been under attack, failing to deliver fair and just elections, maintaining dictatorship governments in power for many years. Constitutional rights and laws are manipulated and changed on the interest of minority elites. We have witnessed arrests and assassination of women political activists and the shutting down of their organizations in Turkey, Burundi and many other parts of the world. Regional and global institutions have been failing to mediate conflicts and to promote accountability; instead they continue to legitimate such dictatorships.
Thousands and thousands of people are forced to migrate. We are living a historical time of mobility of people in search of place where they can save their lives and the lives of their families. Africa is the continent receiving largest numbers of migrant people, children, women and men from rural to urban areas, and from country to another country.
Thousands of Migrants from Africa and Middle East die in the Mediterranean Sea trying to reach Europe to save their lives, in the effort to escape from all the brutalities caused by wars, hunger and persecutions by same capitalist and imperialist forces forehead mentioned. Migrants live in very vulnerable conditions and face all forms of discrimination. They lack recognition of citizenship, they cannot access jobs, they cannot live with their families they are exposed to hunger, diseases and much more. Migrants are human beings, with knowledge, cultures, and values and have a role to play in the process of building a better world for all.
We, World March of Women Militants, call all Activists, our friends and allies around the world, to join us in taking a solidarity action for Peace, on Saturday 3rd June, from 12:00- 01:00pm. Please Post your message and or photograph on our Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/marchemondialedesfemmes/
Share your solidarity messages/demands For Peace, Against War, for Migrants Rights, for women living under occupation, for the people affected by TNCs…
We Will March Until All Women are Free!