WORKING WOMEN MIGRANTS RISE TO THE OCCASION IN CELEBRATION OF INTERNATIONAL WORKING WOMEN’S DAY
MARCH 4 – Over 100 participants gathered online to celebrate International Working Women’s Day and International Women’s Month. Hosted by the International Migrants Alliance (IMA) and International Women’s Alliance (IWA), the global online rally Rise, WMN (Rise, Working Women Migrants Now!) was livestreamed and viewed by over 500 viewers.
The global online rally featured a gathering of working women leaders from all over the world representing various sectors. Interspersed among the many speeches were video performances of working women all over the globe offering poems, dances, and songs of various types. The evening was a moment for working women migrants around the world and their allies to unite on the situation of working women migrants, their struggles, and their demands and celebrate their contributions to pushing for genuine change and promoting our rights and welfare.
Emcee Shiela Tebia of GABRIELA Hong Kong teed off the evening by introducing the participants to IMA Chairperson, Eni Lestari. Eni made a strong appeal to the working women of the globe, calmly calling on the sisters in struggle to rise against imperialism and endeavor to end forced migration and neoliberal policies. Eni noted that working women must be united, rising ever greater, saying that “[p]ost pandemic, working women migrants are facing greater difficulties at all levels and there is no other way to address these challenges except through learning, organizing and mobilizing our own ranks.” Eni’s call was met with an echoing of “The Women United Will Never Be Defeated!” in various languages.
Shiela continued with Francia Balderrama, a Filipino factory worker helping to organize a union in Taiwan, and Natividad Obeso of AMUMRA (Association of Women, Migrants, and Refugees in Argentina). Both speakers highlighted the conditions of factory workers and service workers in their region. Francia described her motivation for struggling for better workplace conditions saying, “I do demand better food and better accommodation because this is my body. We use this to work in the factory and this is the money that I earned from my own sweat.” Natividad urged women to keep fighting, exclaiming that, “[w]orking women migrants have achieved many advancements in fighting for the rights of women against discrimination and other contributions in other international human rights laws and conventions.” Their words were punctuated by a video of One Billion Rising in Hong Kong, a dance that shows that now is the time for women to rise against all forms of violence against women.
BM of Immigrant Workers’ Centre, Iris Cecile Dagba of SYNATREIN, and HN of Amsterdam City Rights followed. BM, who is an agricultural migrant worker in Canada, described the struggles of working women forced into certain types of work and conditions saying, “I left Cameroon because of crisis and now it is not easy for me to return because crisis is still going on. If we had open work permits, if someone listened to us, a lot of women in Canada and around the globe would not be in the condition they are today.” HN, who is an undocumented worker in Amsterdam, added, “[b]ecause this person knows you do not have an apartment to stay, they will use you how they wish. Sometimes they will offer marriage even if they do not have the intention to fulfill it. You think this person is going to help you then domestic violence is something we commonly see happening.” Iris, who works in the informal sector in Senegal, emphasized the importance of solidarity saying, “with the solidarity of the Senegalese I found a place in the street where I put my table and I sell a bit of everything to meet the needs of my three daughters.” These experiences were encapsulated in a poem Migrante describing the toils of working women migrants but also their resolve to keep moving forward.
The next set of speakers were RL of Superfamilia and Joanna Concepcion of Migrante International. RL, who is an undocumented worker in the United States, urged working women to work and gather support for offer better opportunities for undocumented workers: “We are struggling and we need to change the system but we also need our comrades to start doing more for us. We need nonprofits who claim to support undocumented workers to start putting us in positions of leadership.” Joanna highlighted the recent death of Filipino migrant worker Jullebee Ranara in Kuwait and other working women who were abused, exploited, and died. She also added, “The Philippine government’s choice to continue the four decades long program of labor export and neoliberal policies will certainly result in more cases like Jullebee. We believe the Philippine government is accountable for her death and it has truly neglected working women migrants.”
Coni Ledesma of International Women’s Alliance closed the gathering by giving the historical perspective to the celebration of international working women’s day and its relevance to the current struggles of working women. She said, “But we are returning the word “working” to this day. Because this day belongs to us women who struggle for our rights, for jobs and better wages, for equality, sovereignty, self-determination and national liberation.” After some more sharing of calls and demands, a presentation of Babae Ka was shown and the working women migrants and their allies bid each other farewell with their spirits rejuvenated for the struggles and victories to come.
#IWWD2023 #RiseWMN
