IWA joins women around the world rising for JUSTICE and SOLIDARITY, against MILITARISM, FASCISM and VIOLENCE against women

On 8th March, International Working Women’s Day 2020

International Women’s Alliance calls on all its members and allies to engage in strikes, demonstrations, marches, and other militant activities to mark International Working Women’s Day this Sunday, March 8.

Around the world we are witnessing and participating in, an unprecedented number of popular movements where women are on the frontlines. After decades of neoliberal and imperialist policies, war and weapons-based economies, increased social insecurity and cutbacks in public services, forced migration and corporate rule over every aspect of life, have laid bare like never before the growing class inequalities, and people are saying Enough! 

As women from the global south and around the world, we identify with these struggles and are inspired by them.

The women of Chile are calling out perpetrators of systemic violence against women, the military and the government.  Palestinian women continue to be the backbone of resistance against decades of brutal military occupation by the Israeli apartheid regime. The masses in Haiti, including the women, have taken to the streets  against their neoliberal puppet president who was installed by imperialists on the pretext of “humanitarian aid” to help solve the Haitian crisis but, ironically, has drawn the country into ever-deepening economic, political and economic crisis. In India a new generation of women activists lead the fight against Hindutva ethnonationalist fascism. In the United States, the belly of the beast, women continue to organize for accessible and affordable housing for their families in the face of gentrification; women demand equal pay for equal work, and an end to heightened militarism and war in their neighborhoods and communities. The Kurdish women continue to inspire us as they fight to defend Rojava and resist the fascist attacks of Turkey’s Erdogan.

The indigenous matriarchs of Turtle Island, especially the Wetʼsuwetʼen, are confronting the armed force of the Canadian state and highlighting centuries of colonialism and genocide in Canada as they try to stop the construction of a pipeline over their native land. With their allies and supporters, they brought the railways and ports of the country to a halt. 

We stand with women opposing US-led military aggression and imposed regime change from Latin America to the Middle East which is bringing us closer to a global conflagration as we say, “Not in our name!” And we also pay tribute to and recognize the sacrifices of women resisters and fighters who have died or languish in prison, paying a high price for their role in struggles for justice and dignity for their people.  Your commitment to the liberation of all women and the liberation of peoples will continue to be felt by the generations of women who follow in your revolutionary footsteps!

We are inspired by working women who hold together families, take care of children and the elderly, and accomplish double and triple workdays for wages that are still a fraction of those of men. Many of these women and their families constitute the ‘working’ poor. This ultimately benefits those who rake up super profits from our collective labor power.

We are one with the millions of migrant women forced to leave their homes and loved ones to provide a future for their families back home.

We denounce the hypocrisy of anti-migrant policies in imperialist countries that take advantage of cheap migrant labor while turning others away at their borders, putting even children in cages. 

This year will see massive pushback as workers in sectors dominated by women such as health, social services and education continue to resist the neoliberal policies and hold governments accountable for the casualization, forced overtime, and other schemes that seek to privatize all aspects of life and human care.

Violence against women has reached epidemic proportions in countries like Mexico and Guatemala where people speak of femicide. Women rights defenders across the world face sexual harassment, intimidation, repression – in the form of extrajudicial killings and disappearances – from state actors, corporate goons and paramilitary forces. 

In spite of the increase in violence and threats against women, we continue to rise up and demand an end to imperialist aggression. We demand the right to our own self-determination, and the right of all people to live vibrant, healthy, and safe lives. We recognize that our struggles as women are closely linked to one another and to the struggles of the entire world.

When the women of Paris took to the streets for bread in 1786 and Russian women took to the streets in 1917 for peace, land and bread, the earth shook, and the reverberations eventually were felt around the world! When the women of South Africa took a stand in 1956 against apartheid with the slogan “you have struck the women you have struck a rock” it was just a matter of time before the apartheid regime fell. When the women of the Cordillera in the Philippines organized, they stopped the Chico Dam project in the 1980.  The Women of the Pachamama in Ecuador succeeded in keeping transnational mining projects at bay for decades. These women are our inspiration; we stand on their shoulders.  

We stand for justice, equality, solidarity, and for a brighter future for ourselves and our children!

Down with imperialism! 

JOIN US as we take to the streets on 8th MARCH!

Long Live International Working Women’s Day!