European Coordinators of the
World Women’s Conference of Grassroots Women
Susanne Bader/ Germany
Halinka Augustin/Netherlands
Deputy European Coordinator:
Zaman Masudi/Germany
14th October 2019
To the Continental Coordinators of the World Women’s Conference
Solidarity with the Kurdish women- and liberation movement and all people
in Rojava/Northeast Syria!
We World Women strongly condemn the war of aggression against Rojava/Northeast Syria by the fascist Erdogan, his state and military, which is violating international law!
We have stood side by side with our Kurdish friends in many cities of our countries since the beginning of this imperialist attack on the liberated territories.
Solidarity greetings to all on International Women’s Day. On 109th International Women’s Day Socialist Women’s Forum organized a rally at 11am 8th March 2019. Also six leftist women’s organizations including Socialist Women’s Forum observed International Women’s Day jointly. Our call was ‘protest rape-sexual harassment-violence and come on the struggle to establish women with human dignity and equal right’. On this occasion we demanded ‘ Equal right on inheritance’; ‘Equal-wage on equal-work’; ‘Establish uniform civil code’; ‘Economic value of household works in GDP’; ‘Stop violence against women’; ‘Stop gender-base violence at work’ etc.
Please keep us informed about your activities, analysis and keep in touch.
Comradely yours
Shampa Basu
General Secretary/Central Committee
Socialist Women’s Forum
deepl Übersetzung:
Solidarische Grüße an Alle am Internationalen Frauentag. Am 109. Internationalen Frauentag organisierte das Sozialistische Frauenforum am 8. März 2019 um 11 Uhr eine Demonstration. Auch sechs linke Frauenorganisationen, darunter das Socialist Women’s Forum, haben gemeinsam am Internationalen Frauentag teilgenommen. Unser Aufruf lautete “Protest gegen sexuelle Belästigung – Gewalt und der Kampf um die Verwirklichung von Frauen mit Menschenwürde und Gleichberechtigung”. Bei dieser Gelegenheit forderten wir ‘ Gleiches Recht auf Erbschaft’; ‘Gleiches Entgelt für gleiche Arbeit’; ‘Einheitliches Zivilgesetzbuch’; ‘Wirtschaftlicher Wert von Haushaltsarbeiten im BIP’; ‘Gewalt gegen Frauen beenden’; ‘Geschlechterbezogene Gewalt am Arbeitsplatz beenden’ usw.
Bitte informieren Sie uns über Ihre Aktivitäten, Analysen und bleiben Sie in Kontakt.
Halinka Augustin/Netherlands and Susanne Bader/Germany
Call of the World Women’s Movement for International Women’s Day 2019
“In the struggle for liberation I felt freedom for the first time, that’s why I organized myself!”
In many countries of the world, women’s consciousness has awakened on a massive scale!
On International Women’s Day, the day of struggle of the world women’s movement, we look with pride at our revolutionary pioneers like Clara Zetkin! She wrote under the impression of the first socialist revolution in Russia in 1917, as a result of which the right to vote for women was won:
“The first dictatorship of the proletariat is a true pioneer of full social equality for women.“
In many countries, on International Women’s Day 2019, the women’s movement chooses the “strike” as a form of protest, following the example of the workers’ movement. The struggle for the liberation of women is on the agenda in the 21st century. Women of all social strata and classes are at odds with the capitalist system, its representatives in the bourgeois parties and governments. But the contradiction is often still limited to individual questions and demands and is non-binding in its form. In order to become a force that can change society, it needs clarity and organization.
The first theoretical seminar of the World Women’s Movement 2018 in India was an important contribution to this. In this strategy debate it became clear:
From Africa to Europe to Asia female workers fight organized for their equal rights and participation in social life. In India, Sri Lanka, female tea plantation workers are on strike for equal wages with their male colleagues. Female textile workers in Bangladesh are fighting union battles for wages they and their families can live on. Women farmers demand a right to land. The approximately 67 million domestic workers worldwide demand employment contracts and social security, protection against sexual violence and an end to lawlessness. Carers and nurses in the Netherlands and Germany fight for recognition of their work and higher wages.
This was the motto of the six-days of the self-organized World Women’s Conference of grassroots women in Kathmandu, Nepal. 1,300 participants from 48 countries took part, including 74 delegates from 40 countries and more than 200 volunteer helpers. In ten workshops, the participants discussed central issues of the women’s movement. Women’s organisations from 61 countries were actively involved in the preparation programme.
About the Kurdistan Women’s Liberation Movement: Having a history of 40 years in total, the women within the Kurdish National Liberation Struggle are organising themselves autonomously since the early 1990’s. This process that started first within the guerrilla ranks by establishing a women’s guerrilla army today has reached a level of equal participation and representation in all parts of the struggle. Inside the women are organised autonomously and are the ones that take all decisions on women. But the ideological and practical struggle for true liberation continues as it aims to liberate both women and men from the patriarchal and capitalist-modernist mind of state. The women’s struggle within the Kurdish liberation movement marks a revolution within a revolution. It is based on the idea that true revolutions must be female; that liberation theories and ideologies need to take the issue of women’s liberation in it’s centre. The one who started first analysis on women’s status within the society and the liberation of women was the founder and leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Abdullah O He was abducted through a NATO-operation in 1999 and since then kept in solitary confinement on a prison island in Turkey. Sakine Cansiz, nom de guerre ‘Sara’, was one of the first female revolutionaries in Kurdistan. Cansiz was founding member of the PKK. She was imprisoned in 1980 and brutally tortured. By leading the resistance in the prisons against the colonialist Turkish state she became a living legend. She was at the same time a living history of the Kurdish women’s liberation struggle. On January 9, 2013 Sakine Cansiz, together with her comrades Fidan Dogan and Leyla Saylemez, was assassinated by the Turkish intelligence service in Paris/France.
European Coordinators of the World Women’s Conference
Halinka Augustin / Netherlands
Susanne Bader / Germany
World women focus their strategic view!
They call for participation in the International Seminar on the Theory of the Liberation of Women!
In accordance with the resolutions of the 2nd World Women‘s Conference of grassroots women in 2016, the World Coordinators are preparing an International Seminar on the Theory of the Liberation of Women.
It will take place from 2nd to 4th December in India, Bangalore.
We are delighted with the invitation from representatives of the Indian women’s movement. They will welcome us in Bangalore, the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka in the southwest of the country.
For three days, the seminar will offer all interested women the opportunity to discuss theories of women’s liberation in a spirit of solidarity and militancy.
The seminar is based on the realization from the Second World Women‘s Conference that
“The increasing crises of imperialism … challenge the masses, especially the women of the world, to take up the struggle for their future. Increasingly, we need to discuss and search for alternatives. We need to look for answers.“
(Kathmandu resolution 2016)
After these three days we will have the opportunity to visit Indian women’s organisations.
To prepare for this trip, study meetings are currently taking place in several cities in Germany and the Netherlands. Interested women are welcome to join in.
Every woman who is interested can participate in the international seminar in India. We will circulate all known contact addresses via the homepage of the World Women‘s Conference. In this way, interested women can get together to prepare and organise the trip together. In Germany, information can also be obtained from the women’s association Courage.
Flights must be booked to Kempegowda International Airport Bengaluru. We will continuously inform you about further facts such as accommodation, conference site etc. on the homepage.
For now the following is important: You will need a tourist visa which you should apply for as soon as possible. Your passport must remain valid for at least 6 months after your return.
We hope to hear from you and we look forward to seeing you in India!
Our world woman Sharmistha and her fellow campaigners are free again!
We have just received this wonderful news from India:
“We thank you for the message of solidarity with Sharmistha. We are pleased to inform you that Sharmistha and the others who were abducted with her were released the same evening after a massive protest by the people.”
And further they write that the situation is very tense but Sharmistha and other activists are in a safe place.
“(…) We thank you again for your support and promise you that the fight will continue.”
We, the workers of „Fortuna” Gračanica shoe factory and participants of European world womens conference of grasrootswoman, strongly condemn the brutal attack and abduction of activist Sharmista Choudhury and other leaders of the Bhangor-Movement!
As woman, workers and fighters for worker rights in Bosnia and Herzegowina we were also victims of physical and psychic attacks and it is our obligation to the society and to the world to stand up against such attacks on individuals and activist groups.
We demand for immediate and unharmed release of Sharmista and other activists!
We call on the government to take action against such criminal activities and also we call upon the government to take steps to protect the activists in the country.
Free Sharmista!
The workers of “Fortuna ” Gračanica Shoe Factory / Bosnia and Herzegowina
In the name of the Women’s Political counsel we protest against the brutal attacks and the kidnapping of our friend Sharmista Choudhury and ather leaders of the Bhangor-Movement.
Sharmista Choudhury is an well known woman here in germany, she often visited our Women’s Political Counsel, the greatest self organized women event in germany. She is an aktivist of the worlwomen’s conference movement and we work strongly together.
We ask the government to take action against these criminal activities.
