Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières
Dear friends,
We are starting in this weekend already in some countries the first moment of our World March of Women Third International Action. We will be on the streets in 51 countries! We are sending attached the press release and I ask you all to help to spread in your websites and among your email lists and media contacts. All the info is also available in our website www.wmw2010.info (in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese) I also would like to inform you that we have the following additional audiovisual materials:
1. 7 min video: “Women on the March until we are al Free!” (for now available only in Spanish) in:
Mujeres en la Minga - http://www.movimientos.org/mujeres/
WSFTV.net - http://www.wsftv.net/Members/edorizzi/videos/Mujeres_en_Marcha.mp4/view
Youtube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXIoAfV6BEM
2. Special report on 8th of March “Voz de los Movimientos” (available only in Spanish in http://www.radioteca.net/result.php?id=13030098) and audios on the origin of the International Women’s Day (in Spanish, English and French) will be available soon in the website Minga Mujeres (www.movimientos.org/mujeres)
In solidarity and struggle,
Alessandra Ceregatti
WMW - IS
From this weekend onwards, World March of Women activists take to the streets in 51 countries
Activists in various countries will denounce the situation of women in the world and present their demands with regards to the common good and public services, peace and demilitarisation, women’s economic autonomy and violence against women. They will also celebrate the 100th anniversary of the declaration of International Women’s Day.
5th March 2010 – Under the slogan “Women on the March until we are All Free!” the World March of Women will take to the streets in all four corners of the world where the movement is present – Africa, Americas, Asia-Oceania and Europe – in the first key moment of its 3rd International Action. According to the WMW International Secretariat, currently based in São Paulo, Brazil, 51 countries have already confirmed that they will be carrying out actions (see table below). In many countries, mobilisations begin this Saturday, the 6th March. And in New Caledonia, the 1st WMW action took place on the 27th February. But the majority of countries have organised their actions to take place on the 8th March.
Inaugurating the 3rd International Action, there are countries preparing marches and mobilisations during the whole 8th to 18th March period, or during some days in between, in this way drawing society’s attention to women’s situations and demands for justice. It is the case of Brazil, for example, where around 2,000 women from the WMW will march together during 10 days, from Campinas to the capital of São Paulo state. Or in Pakistan, where rural and urban women will march and will hold decentralised seminars and other activities from the 12th to 18th in Toba Tek Singh, Gojra, Gujranwala, Shaikhupora, Kasur and Lahore. In Sri Lanka, a march will take place during 2 moments between the cities of Thalahena y Marawila: between the 8th and the 11th, and between the 15th and the 18th. In Mali, decentralised marches will take place in six districts of the capital, Bamako, from the 8th to the 15th March. These actions will culminate in the carrying out of a march on the 18th, in the North of the country, a region in conflict. In Kenya, activities will start on the 8th and will finish on the 18th and will include marches and cultural events, such as theatrical performances, vigils and visits to communities.
Countries organising activities as part of the WMW’s 3rd International Action
Africa
Algeria
Burkina Faso
Cameroon
Central African Republic
Democratic Republic of Congo
Kenya
Mali
Morocco
Mozambique
South Africa
Sudan
Western Sahara
Americas
Argentina
Bolivia
Brazil
Canada
Chile
Colombia
Cuba
Ecuador
El Salvador
Guatemala
Haiti
Honduras
Martinique
Mexico
Peru
Quebec
United States
Asia-Oceania
Bangladesh
India
Japan
Nepal
New Caledonia
Pakistan
Philippines
Republic of Korea
Sri Lanka
Europe
Albania
Bask Country
Belgium
Catalonia
England
France
Galicia
Greece
Italy
Macedonia
Portugal
Switzerland
Turkey
How the WMW 3rd International Action is organised
The 3rd International Action is being launched on International Women’s Day (8th March), and will continue throughout the year until the 17th October (the International Day for the Eradication Poverty). The International Action includes decentralised activities (at the country level) and regional activities (in Asia-Oceania, Europe and the Americas). It also includes an international event, focusing on peace and demilitarisation, the mobilisation in Bukavu (South Kivu province), in the Democratic Republic of Congo, that will bring the International Action to an end. Around 500 women will participate in this mobilisation, the majority from the African continent, but also from other countries in conflict in the world.
For details of country level actions, visit the website of the 3rd International Action: http://www.wmw2010.info
International Women’s Day: In search of lost history
In this first key moment of the 3rd International Action, WMW activists will also highlight the history of International Women’s Day (today commemorated on the 8th March) whose true meaning – the struggle for women’s rights and the transformation of society – is lost in the commercialisation that takes place around this day. Traditionally, this history is linked to a strike and / or fire that are supposed to have taken place in a women’s textile factory in New York, either in 1857 or in 1908, but in a deeper research into its origins, a whole period of feminist struggle for economic and workers rights, as well as the right to vote, in the USA and elsewhere is discovered.
It was in 1910, at the 2nd International Socialist Women’s Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, that Clara Zetkin – German socialist and feminist – proposed the creation of an annual International Women’s Day, following the example of North American socialist women who, since 1908, had been organising a national annual Woman’s Day (to demand economic and political equality for women, to denounce exploitation of women workers, to demand the right to vote, etc).
To read more about the history of International Women’s Day, please go to: http://www.marchemondiale.org/actions/2010action/origen8marzo/en
For interviews and further information
1. Alessandra Ceregatti (World March of Women International Secretariat), for contacts with the WMW International Committee and National Coordinating Bodies in various countries: Tel. +55 11 3032-3243 or +55 11 8316-3664 / Email: communication marchemondiale.org.
2. World March of Women websites: www.wmw2010.info and WMW: www.marchemondiale.org
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