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Press Release: Feminists around the world call for a Women’s Global Strike on March 8, 2020

Home > Latest News > Press Release: Feminists around the world call for a Women’s Global Strike on March 8, 2020

Press Release: Feminists around the world call for a Women’s Global Strike on March 8, 2020

February 18, 2020 | By admin
0

In response to unkept promises made by governments to advance human rights, equality, development and peace for all women, more than 95 feminist organisations from over 36 countries worldwide call for a Women’s Global Strike on International Women’s Day (March 8, 2020). Under the theme, “If women stop, the world stops”, the strike calls women from every corner of the world to stop or slow down their formal or care work and come together to demand women’s human rights.

“On March 8, we will be forging alliance to advocate and reclaim women’s collective power to demand our human rights”, explains Fatima Burnad, founder of the Society for Rural Education and Development and Regional Council member of Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD), a network of feminist organisations that initiated this year’ strike. “Women will withdraw from formal work and care work. We will not do housework, domestic responsibility, and where necessary ask male partners and allies to show solidarity by taking over responsibilities for home, family and community. We will bring together women and queer allies in our networks and communities to march, to speak out and to come together.”

We mark 25 years since the commitments made by the world’s governments for women’s rights at the 1995 Fourth World Conference for Women, known as the Beijing Platform for Action. Still, structural oppression against women – whether it is patriarchy, neoliberalism, globalisation, militarism, fundamentalism or environmental destruction, persists worldwide:

  • Women and girls continue to perform more than three-quarters of the total amount of unpaid care work, while domestic work is commonly underpaid and performed under precarious working conditions.
  • Women across the world are paid 63% of the amount that men are paid. The global pay gap will take 202 years to close.
  • 70% of women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner in their lifetime.
  • 80% of people displaced by climate change are women.

In the light of these staggering inequalities, from Argentina to Indonesia, Serbia to Canada and  Pakistan to Uganda, social movements, communities and organisations around the world have endorsed the strike, uniting women in global solidarity to take action and connect their struggles against systemic inequalities. 

“As domestic workers, we are calling on those women who have suffered violence and harassment at work and have been exploited in many ways, to stand up for their rights, and those women who haven’t experienced such abuses, to mobilise in solidarity”, says Ida LeBlanc, President of the National Union of Domestic Employees of Trinidad Tobago and member of the International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, ESCR-Net 

Common demands of women striking are reflected in a political statement that contains the demands for structural transformations: decent work and living wages; end gender-based violence; just access to resources, power, and opportunity; food sovereignty for all and climate justice.

Who we are

The demand for a global strike led and owned by women was ignited by feminists, trade unionists and activists at the People’s General Assembly held in 2015, in New York. This call for a Women’s Global Strike on 8 March 2020 has been initiated by the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD), a leading network of feminist organizations and grassroots activists in Asia and the Pacific.

ESCR-Net -International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, is connecting struggles to escalating the Women’s Global Strike to the global level. ESCR-Net is a global  network that promotes solidarity and collective action to advance a global movement for social justice, and unites 298 organizations, social movements and advocates across 77 countries in five regions.

 Additional Resources

  1. Our Political Statement in 8 languages
  2. Our campaign logo
  3. List of upcoming events 
  4. Resources for media dissemination

Follow and Join the Conversation

Website: www.womensglobalstrike.com

Facebook: @WomensGlobalStrike

Twitter @WomensGblStrike

Instagram @womensglobalstrike

Press Enquiries

Neha Gupta at neha@apwld.org (Thailand, English and Hindi)

Esther de la Rosa, edelaroa@escr-net.org (New York. English and Spanish) 

Press enquiries

For press enquiries, get in touch with Neha Gupta at neha@apwld.org.

For regular press and media updates on the Women's Global Strike campaign sign up using the link below.

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womensglobalstrike

We, feminist organisations and allies globally call for a Women’s Global Strike on 8 March 2020. If women stop, the world stops!

Marchers have arrived at Thapae Gate for the #Wome Marchers have arrived at Thapae Gate for the #WomensGlobalStrike event in #chiangmaithailand #IWD2020 #ifwomenstoptheworldstops #stoptheworld
Tomorrow ALL WOMEN 👇
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hit the streets! Tomorrow we march, sing, dance, shout together to #StopTheWorld. #IWD2020 #IfWomenStopTheWorldStops
#WomensGlobalStrike
Anger ➡ Hope ➡ Action Banners ✔ Posters ✔ Anger ➡ Hope ➡ Action
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Strike! 🛑
2 days from now, on #IWD2020, thousands of women are taking to streets to strike for justice and equality. Join us for #WomensGlobalStrike and #StopTheWorld.
Our partners in Fiji start off the Women's Global Our partners in Fiji start off the Women's Global Strike with the If Women Stop the World Stops Concert in Suva @fwrm1
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We, feminist organisations and allies from around the world, went on a #WomensGlobalStrike on 8 March 2020. If women stop, the world stops.

Women's Global Strike
Retweet on TwitterWomen's Global Strike Retweeted
AWID@AWID·
3 Jun

A #FeministBailout values care work as the foundation of a post-COVID19 economy.

Delegating care work to working class and migrant worker women is NOT a solution to “work-life balance”!

We join @IDWFED in demands to #InvestInCare - NOW! https://twitter.com/IDWFED/status/1268092050966228994

IDWF@IDWFED

Hi @AWID, would you be able to join us in this conversation and give us your input? We are inviting our allies to cover the topic from different angles. Let us know!

Reply on Twitter 1268096955428855810Retweet on Twitter 12680969554288558108Like on Twitter 126809695542885581011Twitter 1268096955428855810
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Women's Global Strike

9 months ago

Women's Global Strike

Employees at many online retailers, grocery store chains and package-delivery services are planning labour actions Friday to protest what they describe as unsafe working conditions amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

#COVID19 #mayday
www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/05/01/848931228/essential-workers-plan-may-day...
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Essential Workers Plan May Day Strikes; Others Demand End To COVID-19 Lockdowns

www.npr.org

Grocery store and warehouse workers are calling for sick leave and hazard pay, while nurses will protest for more PPE. And others are targeting stay-at-home orders.
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2019 Women's Global Strike
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