By:IWU-FI
58 years ago the Mirabal sisters were assassinated by the genocidal dictatorship of General Trujillo in Dominican Republic. Patria, Minerva and Maria Teresa were kidnapped, tortured and killed for rebelling against a genocidal state and seeking to break the standard role assigned to women.ÂÂÂÂÂ In their memory, 25 November has been established as an international day of struggle against violence against women where we will take to the streets to shout #NiUnaMenos, we want us alive, against all forms of gender violence, stop discriminating against women in salaries and for legal, safe and free abortion.
Women have played the leading role in huge fights against gender violence worldwide.Demonstrations for #NiUnaMenos in Argentina in 2015 rapidly expanded through Latin America and Europe. It contributed to the generalisation of the claim against feminicides and the fact that capitalist governments are responsible for the death of women.
Feminicide is the most extreme form of patriarchal violence against women, it implies the ownership of the women’s bodies and lives. Every year thousands of women are assassinated for being women by their partners, former partners or males in their inner circle.
According to the Observatory for Latin America and Caribbean Equality of Gender, based on the information over 16 countries in the area and Spain, there were a total of 2,554 victims in 2017, of which Brazil had 1,133.These numbers grow when we include countries with the highest levels of feminicides, like Mexico with 49 per week or Colombia with 15.This extreme form of patriarchal violence led women massively to take to the streets to shout we want to live. This claim incorporated the acknowledgement of other forms of gender violence, not only physical but, psychological, symbolic, economic and sexual, that acquired more strength in the fourth wave worldwide of women’s movement struggle.
The majority of the women in the world have been abused and treated violently at least once in their lives.
With the beginning of the #MeToo in 2017 in the US, a massive reaction against millennial impunity of men to exercise sexual violence against women developed. An authentic Worldwide rebellion expanded rapidly internationally.From the first reports in Hollywood, women reported sexual violence and organised to confront it. Since the massive demonstrations called by women in the Spanish State against the decision taken by the judicial system on the Manada case (gang rape), the feminist occupations in Chile and the strikes in Mac Donalds and Google of women workers against sexual harassment, the rebellion against any form of gender violence grows.
With the two international womens strikes it became apparent that workers unions should claim for the wage gap that reaches as high as 23 percent at international level, according to UN.The patriarchal capitalist system uses the milenary oppression of women to over exploit us and to get bigger earnings. That is why we fight for capitalism and patriarchy to fall together.
Since 2017, with the first #gritogoblal for legal abortion the fight for the right to decide over our own bodies was one of the largest struggles made on the streets and it conquered that right for Ireland. In Argentina, millions took to the streets for legal abortion, a fight that runs throughout Latin America. There will not be #NiUnaMenos until clandestine abortion end in the 40 percent of the world where it is still illegal.
This 25 November we must strengthen our struggle going out onto the streets worldwide. Capitalist governments and the different religions are responsible for women’s deaths
We need to be on the streets to make this wave of fights grow bigger. Following the women in the States against the Trump government, the Brazilian women for the #EleÑao against the reactionary, machist and misogyny of Bolsonaro, and the Argentinian women with the green wave for legal abortion and in all countries where women are organising themselves to fight for their rights.From IWU-FI we call to coordinate actions in all the world against all forms of patriarch violence to keep making the earth tremble.
International Workers Unity-Fourth International (IWU-FI)
November 2018
