Around the World:

International Women’s Day—in the Streets for Equality and Against Anti-Women Violence

March 13, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Across the world on March 8, women as well as men were out in the streets to mark International Women’s Day. A particular target of many of the protests was demanding an end to rape, murder, and other forms of violence against women. Some of the actions were part of a Global Women’s Strike, demanding equality for women at work in other areas of life and society.

As the speech from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, for this year’s International Women’s Day said, “International Women’s Day could not be more important and urgent than it is this year. We gather at a time when all across the globe, women are being violated, brutalized, humiliated, kidnapped and beaten, bought and sold into actual sexual slavery, objectified and humiliated in pornography, denied control over their own lives and reproduction, forced to have children against their will or to risk their lives and even die to avoid it... Women are raped, stalked, viciously exploited in the factories and fields, imprisoned in veils and harassed on the streets, terrorized, shamed, taught to submit and treated as less than human. Everywhere.”

In Buenos Aires, Argentina, tens of thousands were part of the Ni Una Menos (“Not one less,” meaning not one more woman killed by violence at the hands of men.) This is a country where there is one case of “femicide”—murder of women in domestic violence and other crimes directed against women—every 30 hours. One protester said, “They are killing us. We can’t get used to that as if it were normal.”

There were Ni Una Menos marches in a number of other Latin American countries on March 8.

Tens of thousands took to the streets on International Women’s Day in a number of cities  in Turkey, where hundreds of women are killed every year, often by their husbands. In the city of Istanbul, more than 10,000—mostly women, according to news reports—marched as they chanted “end male-perpetrated violence” and “Tayyip, Tayyip, run, run, we are coming.” “Tayyip” refers to the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has been carrying out extreme repression against opposition to his regime since a failed coup attempt last year. Many protesters carried signs saying simply “No.” People also marched in Ankara and Diyarbakir, in an area the country where the oppressed Kurdish people are concentrated.

In Islamabad, Pakistan, women and men protested with signs calling for an end to attacks on women—hundreds of women each year are disfigured by acid attacks, beaten, and killed, accused of bringing “dishonor” to their families because they are raped, accused of adultery, or commit other alleged “offenses.”

In Ireland, a strike was called for March 8 to call for repeal of the Eighth Amendment of the Irish Constitution, which broadly outlaws abortion except in rare circumstances. Thousands marched in Dublin, shutting down a landmark bridge and major streets, and there were marches in other cities across Ireland.

In Manila, Philippines, protesters rallied at the U.S. embassy, calling out the brutal Philippine ruler Duterte, whose police and vigilantes have murdered hundreds of people under the guise of going after supposed drug dealers. Trump has expressed support for Duterte, and protesters burned a U.S. flag with Trump’s image on it. Some protesters wore masks dripping with fake blood to symbolize violence against women.

Some of the other International Women’s Day protests around the world:

Over 20,000 marched in Rome, Italy, the largest of the protests on March 8 in dozens of cities across the country. In Sana'a, Yemen, women protested outside the UN offices with signs saying “Yemen women die due to war and siege!”—opposing the U.S.-backed war and blockade by Saudi Arabia, as well as direct U.S. military strikes, that have killed many Yemeni civilians and caused tremendous suffering. In Bucharest, Romania, dozens of women lay on the ground and read out names of women, aged 16 to 66, killed by their partners in Romania in an event called “If one falls, we all fall.” In Tbilisi, Georgia, demonstrators rallied in support of LGBTQ rights and in defense of women’s right to abortion. The Associated Press reported on March 8: “Women across Poland are staging rallies and marches to demand protection against violence, equal rights and respect.”

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