MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Women mobilize for their rights around the world: “it will take 300 years” to achieve equality

In Uruguay, the only Uruguayan trade union center, PIT-CNT, called for the first time a 24-hour national strike for women only. Photo: Gastón Britos / Foco Uy

Thousands of women will take to the streets of the world Wednesday to denounce a global offensive against their rights and demand an end to discrimination and femicides, on the rise in Latin American countries such as Mexico, Colombia, and Uruguay.

On the occasion of International Women's Day, there will be events and marches in many cities, including some of the biggest cities in the world.

In Uruguay, the only Uruguayan trade union center, PIT-CNT, called for the first time a 24-hour national strike for women only, for next March 8 and in the framework of International Women's Day, it was reported on February.

The general secretary of the PIT-CNT, Elbia Pereira, explained to EFE on the reasons for the call and stressed that women's demands “have yet to be met”.

The reasons for globally mobilization are numerous: the discrimination imposed in Afghanistan since the return to power of the Taliban, the repression of protests in Iran over the death of Mahsa Amini, the questioning of the right to abortion in the United States or the consequences of the war in Ukraine on women.

“The progress made over decades is evaporating before our eyes,” warned UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday.

“At the current rate, UN Women expects it will take 300 years” to achieve equality between men and women, he added, after recalling the situation in Afghanistan, where women and girls have been “erased from public life” since the return to power of the Taliban in August 2021.

Afghan universities reopened on Monday after the winter break, but their classrooms could only be attended by men.

The European Union (EU) on Tuesday, the eve of March 8, adopted sanctions against Taliban Minister of Higher Education Neda Mohammed Nadeem, “responsible for the widespread violation of women's right to education.”

Other individuals or entities responsible for violations of women's rights in Iran, Russia, South Sudan, Burma or Syria were also subject to sanctions.

Banned marches

Women's marches were banned in several places, such as Pakistan, where the authorities cited the “controversial posters” often carried by women demonstrators calling for divorce or against sexual harassment.

Independent feminist organizations in Cuba, which called in response to a “virtual march” on social networks to raise awareness about gender violence and femicides, were also denied permission to demonstrate.

Another central theme of the marches will be the defense of the right to abortion, weakened in the United States by the decision of the Supreme Court to revoke in June the 1973 ruling that guaranteed it at the federal level.

Mexico and Colombia against feminicide

Under the slogans “Not one more murdered woman!” and “Against male violence and precarious work!”, feminist collectives called for marches in the main cities of Mexico, where in 2022 there were 969 femicides, according to official figures.

Also in Colombia, women's organizations have called for demonstrations in Bogota, Medellin, Cali and other cities to demand action against the increase in femicides, which rose from 182 in 2020 to 614 last year.

In Brazil, with a “big feminist batucada” in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the “cuts in women's protection policies” and the “vertiginous growth of machismo and misogyny” during the mandate of the far-right Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022) will be denounced, said Junéia Batista, from the Central Única de Trabalhadores (CUT).

The current leftist president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, will participate in Brasilia in the launching of programs aimed at women and in the creation of the National Marielle Franco Day against political violence, in homage to the councilwoman assassinated in 2018.

In Venezuela, unions and federations called for a march in Caracas to demand guarantees of their rights, violated by low wages, abuses and the “growing feminization of poverty”.