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sharmanand@yahoo.com Women in India of all religions, along with women in Africa, the Caribbean, Korea, South America, Europe, Aotearoa (New Zealand) and North America, as well as Indigenous nations and women of colour in many countries, are taking part in the 3rd Global Women's Strike, Friday 8 March. Women are calling for governments to invest in caring not killing - for money to be taken from military spending and to go to women instead, for all our communities.
Chhattisgarh Women's Organisation (CWO) is co-ordinating Strike activities in Raipur on 8 March (supported by seven other women’s organisations), and Pithora on 10 March, where 5000 women are expected to gather. CWO have been organising against bonded labour for many years: in particular for the work women and girls do to be valued, therefore paying off the "debt" of the family to the landlord. Their work has freed 5,000 bonded labourers and their families, a total of around 25,000 people. Taking Strike action they say: "We are raising our voices against globalisation, the World Trade Organisation and the International Monetary Fund which is affecting everyone adversely." The focus of their demands is pay equity, land rights, an end to "untouchability", and for safe drinking water.
In Andhra Pradesh, women have formed an activist group from St Joseph’s Educational and Social Services Society, working with Dalit and Adivasi women, and will take Strike action against dowry deaths, atrocities on women and girls in workplaces and to stop upper caste communities taking away their rights.
Women from Pakistan are also taking Strike action, protesting military spending which keeps governments in power while denying women and children the basics of life.
A Strike call from women at the Aymara Centre “Pacha Aru” in Peru who are co-ordinating Strike activities in Aymara and Quechua communities in the Andes and working closely with the Domestic Workers Centre in Lima sent an Open Letter to Indigenous (including Tribal) and rural women everywhere: "We Indigenous women need to be in touch with each other across national borders and continents, and with other women of colour. This is an opportunity for Indigenous women from all the movements of the world to unite . . . to highlight the situation of every one of us and demand the recognition and resources we deserve” (See Website for full text.)
Women of colour say: “We women of colour, internationally, are striking for a world which values all women's work and every life, and to end ’America's new war ‘ and all wars. There has never been so much wealth, while so many have so little. We raise children only to see them forced into the hardest jobs for the least pay, attacked
on the street, imprisoned unjustly, or used as cannon fodder for the military. We confront discrimination and indignity daily, but the survival work we women do of feeding and defending our families gets little recognition, even from our own communities. Racism has always combined with sexism so that our labour comes cheap or for free. Either we do unwaged work for as much as 18 hours a day or even longer, or if we do work for wages, we get less than men for the same work/work of equal value. In the UK, Asian women's average earnings are £34 a week less than white women's, and all women only get two-thirds of men's
wages!
The Strike brings together all women, including women of colour, rural and urban, older and younger, whatever our nationality or immigration status. Our demands speak to women's first needs globally: payment for caring work – in wages, pensions, land and other resources; pay equity among women and men internationally; paid maternity leave and breastfeeding breaks; don't pay 'Third World debt'; accessible clean water, healthcare, housing, transport, literacy and information; non-polluting energy and technology to cut our workload; protection and asylum from all violence & persecution; and freedom of movement.”
Payday, a global network of men, is co-ordinating support from men internationally:
payday@paydaynet.org. Chhattisgarh Women's Organisation contact Manju Gardia
Tel: 00 91 7707 71107 or 0091 7707 71263 email:
sharmanand@yahoo.com Latest news
http://womenstrike8m.server101.com Email:
womenstrike8m@server101.com Women of Colour Network for the Global Women’s Strike:
In England: Tel/minicom (020) 7482 2496, Fax (020) 72094761
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