La Via Campesina (LVC) – Arab Region and the North African Network for Food Sovereignty
LVC – Arab region and the North African Network for Food Sovereignty commemorate the International Women’s Day of Struggle, which falls on the eighth of March of each year.
March 8, 2022 comes in a printed regional and global context, with the intensification of the capitalist attack on the livelihood of millions of working women and men, through high prices, hitting purchasing power and increasing the living burdens on working women, housewives and the unemployed, in addition to the severity of climate changes represented in the drought that hits our region. It will multiply the suffering of rural women who will push them to migrate to the margins of the cities to search for job opportunities in the major capitalist agricultural estates…etc, and other types of oppression under which millions of women and even men are subjected.
On this day, we fondly recall the militant history of the women’s movement in our region. In both the North African Network for Food Sovereignty and the La Via Campesina movement in the Arab region, we affirm that the liberation of our society from political, economic and social oppression depends on the liberation of women with their own strength, shoulder to shoulder with all the oppressed and exploited, in the struggle against the patriarchal capitalist society that perpetuates exploitation and oppression.
On this eternal struggle day, we salute the historical struggles of women for their rights without derogation in order to live in dignity and freedom. It is not new to reaffirm that women are the ones who feed their people, preserve collective memory and lead the ranks of the resistance all over the world.
On the other hand, the memory of the eighth of March is upon us this year, and women in the Arab region still suffer from many aspects of discrimination, such as sexual and psychological violence in a large number of fields, and we especially mention the agricultural workers who are languishing under the heinous exploitation of capitalism, in addition to depriving them of The right to union work to defend their rights, not to mention the low wages they receive for hard work in miserable conditions akin to slavery.
In this context, LVC in the Arab region and the North African Network for Food Sovereignty stress the need to continue the struggle from below to extract gains that enable women to organize and actual feminist political participation, and to oblige countries in our region to implement family protection measures and confront all calls and reactionary practices that seek to rob On the slight gains made by the struggle of women and the prevention of their progressive role at the societal level.
For these and other goals, we will seek in our region to unify our struggle to support the battles of small food producers, led by women victims of male and capitalist oppression, and we will continue the struggle for popular agrarian reform, food sovereignty, agroecology, and peasant and popular feminism.
And finally, we salute all the free women and men of the world who struggle against discrimination for the sake of equality and support the causes of the oppressed… We also salute the women in our region who challenge reaction and tyranny, whatever its source.
A Tribute to the Struggling Woman: To the Resilient Farmer for a Better Life
Long live the struggle of women… Rural women and agricultural workers
LVC Movement – Arab Region and North African Network for Food Sovereignty
March 8, 2022