[E-rundbrief] Info 1508 - Via Campesina - women's struggle to win our rights
Matthias Reichl
info at begegnungszentrum.at
Mo Mär 7 16:41:36 CET 2016
E-Rundbrief - Info 1508 - La Via Campesina - International Peasant's
Movement: Women - March 8th: Organising and struggle to win our rights.
Bad Ischl, 7.3.2016
Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
www.begegnungszentrum.at
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La Via Campesina - International Peasant's Movement
Women
March 8th: Organising and struggle to win our rights
Published on Monday, 07 March 2016 20:36
http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/main-issues-mainmenu-27/women-mainmenu-39/1988-march-8th-organising-and-struggle-to-win-our-rights
2016-03-07-Afiche-EN.jpg (Harare, March 8th, 2016)
Today, International Women’s Day, La Via Campesina is calling for
action against capitalist violence all over the world. Capitalist
violence is not only the violence that is directly inflicted upon
women; it is also an integral part of a social context of exploitation
and dispossession that is characterised by the historical oppression
and violation of the basic rights of women peasants, farmers, and
farmworkers, landless women, indigenous women and black women.
La Via Campesina emphasises the importance of organising and struggle,
leading to liberation and awareness and enabling women to participate
in politics as historical subjects – with the goal of building a just
society, regardless of ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation.
The international peasant and farmer movement is very troubled to see
that, with the spread of conservative policies which constitute an
attack on women’s human rights and their very lives, there is growing
oppression of women by capitalism and the patriarchy around the world.
In Turkey, where we recently held the La Via Campesina Midterm Women’s
Assembly, we saw how the situation of women has worsened with the
growing extension of neoliberal and conservative policies. Women
continue to be deprived of their most basic freedom, of their
elementary rights; they are exposed to violence and to feminicide. In
recent years, in this region of the world, there has been a dramatic
increase in murders of women. Girls are forced to marry when they are
still very young. In the economic sphere, most of the precarious work
is done by women. In the rural areas, women perform many jobs; they do
not, however, have economic freedom or access to property, and still
less do they have social rights.
In south-eastern Turkey, women’s problems are being exacerbated by the
ongoing war, and their lives are under very real threat. The current
political situation in Turkey does not offer any solution to the
problems faced by women. In fact, current policies are compounding the
problems and increasing the discrimination against women. For these
reasons, women are organising, and they are now leading many
environmental, social, and political struggles.
In recent days, we have learned with great sadness of the
assassination of Berta Cáceres, peasant leader of the Lenca
indigenous people and member of COPINH (the Civic Council of Popular
and Indigenous Organisations of Honduras). Berta Cáceres had
repeatedly expressed her opposition to the destructive plans and
actions of the Honduran government, which is offering natural resource
concessions to foreign transnational corporations for dam construction
and is facilitating the takeover of the resources belonging to the
indigenous peoples.
It is for these reasons, that the women and men of La Via Campesina,
confronted by this context of criminalisation, are calling for March
8th, 2016, to be a day of mobilising and organising against all forms
of oppression, of taking to the streets and public areas of our
cities, towns, and territories, in order to denounce the destructive
capitalist and agribusiness model and to show how it harms the lives
of women and jeopardises the food sovereignty of the world’s peoples –
directly affecting women peasants and small-scale farmers. We will
continue to struggle for new gender relations within our movement, and
we will continue to promote a societal model based on justice and
equality.
Berta lives on! The struggle continues!
Globalize the struggle! Globalize hope!
Long live our solidarity with Turkish women!
See also:
La Via Campesina Women’s Manifesto:
http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/our-conferences-mainmenu-28/6-jakarta-2013/resolutions-and-declarations/1451-women-of-via-campesina-international-manifesto-2
Video: Women Planting Struggles and Hope!
http://tv.viacampesina.org/Women-planting-struggles-and-hope?lang=en
Postcards and audios: Campaign to Stop Violence Against Women:
http://tv.viacampesina.org/Post-cards-to-End-violence-againts?lang=en
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Matthias Reichl, Pressesprecher/ press speaker,
Begegnungszentrum fuer aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
Center for Encounter and active Non-Violence
Wolfgangerstr. 26, A-4820 Bad Ischl, Austria,
fon: +43 6132 24590, Informationen/ informations,
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