Call
for action March 8th,
2024 – International
Working Women’s Day
Bagnolet,
February 22, 2024.
This March 8,
International Working
Women’s Day, as a
result of our 8th International Conference that
took place in
Colombia in December
2023, La Via
Campesina has been
strengthened by its
clear proposals based
on the defense of Food
Sovereignty and the
acknowledgement of the
fundamental role of
the women in this
process. The
international peasant
movement also
committed to
strengthen the Peasant
and Popular Feminism
in the fight against
patriarchy and for the
equality, bearing in
mind that diversity is
in the center of Food
Sovereignty in all the
territories.
After
31 years of existence
as a peasant movement,
La Via Campesina has
been consolidating a
unity movement for the
transformation. We
have been organizing,
opening and deepening
paths for the struggle
that reflect our
reality, our demands
and many realities for
women in the peasant
territories.
Nowadays,
the Peasant and
Popular Feminism
struggle is our tactic
for the women living
in the fields, the
waters, the woods, the
deserts, the savannah,
the moors, the
wetlands and the
mountains. This tactic
carries our struggles
against the violence
and the patriarchy in
our territories, in
our communities,
organizations and
countries, considering
our realities as
peasant women,
recognizing our
strengths and
identifying our common
enemies.
As
part of this day of
action, we denounce
all kinds of violence,
evils of the
capitalist and
patriarchal system
that exploits and
oppress women, we
manifest against the
femicides as the most
ruthless expression of
violence expressed
over the women,
childhoods and
diversities bodies.
Every year, tens of
thousands of girls and
women, including women
are murdered around
the world because of
their gender. They are
more at risk of dying
because of gender
violence due to
failure of the states
to fulfill its duty to
effectively protect
life of survivors and
ensure their safety.
In
the face of the
alarming rise of the
right wing and the
conservative rhetoric,
rights setbacks, of
the fascism and
neo-fascist threats,
with wars,
occupations, the
displacement and the
capitalist looting of
the fields in
Palestine, Haiti,
Nigeria, Peru and
Ecuador, in tandem
with the criminal
action of the
multinationals and the
judiciary system that
hijack our food
systems around the
world, we keep
claiming that Food
Sovereignty is only
possible with peasants
and that we are
responsible for
cooling the the Earth.
We are the responsible
for feeding the
peoples and we are who
build societies of
peace and social
justice!
Since
La Via Campesina
adopted the policy and
ethics of the Food
Sovereignty, claiming
the rights of the
peoples to define
their own agricultural
and food policies, the
peasant women have had
a key role in making
this principle a
reality within their
communities and
territories and
presenting it as a
concrete alternative
for the peasantry in
face of the food,
environmental and
social crises to
promote a fair and
supportive trade.
However,
we keep raising our
voice denouncing and
resisting against
the:
states
that use the food as
war weapon,
increasing the
misery and hunger.
We’re not aiming for
food security; we’re
going all out for
food sovereignty!
capitalist
model of
agro-hydro-mining
business that
commodifies the
food, the soil, that
exploits the
underground with
mining, opening
furrows in our land
and causing
environmental and
social destruction.
alarming
migrations wave
seeking for jobs and
dignity in a world
that exploits the
labor force.
religious
actions that in name
of the culture
threaten the life
and freedom of women
and diversities
around the world.
genocide
of our ancestral
peoples and
communities, their
values, their rights
and their forms of
organization.
violations,
the early marriages
and the violence
against the
childhood. Girls are
not mothers! Sexual
and reproductive
rights and sexual
education are
needed,
And
we denounce the:
the
accomplice judiciary
system that promotes
the impunity and
re-victimizes
survivors of
violence.
the
racism still rooted
that justifies the
racial superiority
and makes even more
vulnerable the
peasant, black and
indigenous women.
As
a peasant movement, we
will continue to
strengthen the need
for equality, the
rural-urban alliances
that not only
challenges us to build
new gender relations
between human beings,
but also takes care of
the mother earth. Our
Peasant and Popular
Feminism values the
peasant agriculture as
a driving force for
Food Sovereignty and
challenges the
exploitation process
of people, the
cornering of the soil
and the water and the
colonizing
extractivism. For us,
the soil and the
territories are life
spaces where we want
to build healthy
relations free of
agrochemicals and
violence.
We
commit ourselves to
continue to be
organized and united,
being the first
resistance front
against the
extractivism, the
capitalism and the
patriarchy in our
territories, to
preserve biodiversity,
the seeds, our common
goods and our
ancestral knowledge.
We continue building
the movement,
revolutionizing souls
and consciences, as
well as fighting for
the popular
sovereignty, for the
Food Sovereignty, for
our peoples and
communities’
sovereignty and for
the women’s
sovereignty.
