Spanish State – 8th of March: For the Emancipation of Working-class and Migrant Women!
We hereby share an unofficial translation of a call for the 8th of March published by the Revolutionary Committees of the Spanish State.
Working women are constantly struggling to break the chains of oppression that have hung around their necks for centuries. All over the world, female workers, peasants, students, and all women of the people suffer imperialist violence in its cruelest form. Imperialism, relying on the most misogynistic traditions and practices that exist, develops patriarchal violence in all its forms. Hunger, poverty, and genocide are not enough; imperialism promotes the sale of women, child marriage, mass rape, and all kinds of patriarchal atrocities.
In our country, imperialist and patriarchal violence particularly targets migrant women. They do the hardest jobs, earn tiny wages, and are ignored by their employers. They are mistreated and harassed at work and outside of work, and when they report the abuse, they are ignored, or the abusers are defended. Life in working-class neighborhoods is becoming increasingly difficult, progressively denying them and their families access to healthcare, education, and even electricity and water, as is the case in Cañada Real. Sexual violence is also prevalent among migrant women: more than 90% of women who are prostituted are foreigners. Even their employers rape them, as is the case with seasonal strawberry pickers in Huelva.
The State is aware of this situation and does nothing to remedy it. What’s more, it is the State institutions and governments themselves (whether national, regional, or local) that apply racist policies of segregation and institutional extortion. Those who are raped cannot report it because of police persecution of migrants. Those who have children are extorted into doing what the State wants under threat of having their children taken away by social services. Those who do not want to have children are prevented from exercising their right to abortion. Institutional violence is the order of the day.
Those who want to work to become financially independent and leave home to escape abuse cannot do so. Wages are insufficient to make a living. Many cannot even get a job interview because they do not speak the language well, and the State does not provide minimal resources to teach them Spanish and help them find employment. The State’s policy is to perpetuate poverty and isolate migrant women from other working-class women. They want to prevent them from organizing and fighting back.
But they are not succeeding. Working women around the world are sharpening their weapons and marching toward combat. More and more women workers, peasants, students, and women from oppressed peoples are fighting on the front lines of the revolution to sweep imperialism and all its lackeys from the face of the earth, to end centuries of oppression and humiliation against women.
It also happens in our country, despite the fact that the mainstream media of imperialism wants to hide it in order to spread pessimism and capitulation. Without going any further, just a month and a half ago, on January 31, migrant women from Cañada Real mobilized for the right to housing, electricity, water, dignity… to life itself. That is the path of migrant women, the path of struggle. Working women have nothing to lose, and instead, a whole world to win.
