La Vía Campesina | e-Newsletter | 8 March 2021
This edition of the newsletter is the result of a collective effort of organisations that are part of La Via Campesina around the world. To subscribe click here.

 08 March: Global Solidarity Actions demand equal ownership of land, recognition of women's work and a world free of violence
Across the world, peasant and indigenous movements carried out solidarity actions to mark International Women's Day on (and during the week of) the 8th of March 2021. 

La Via Campesina had issued a clarion call to all its members worldwide by pointing out that to defeat the virus of patriarchy and capitalism, we need the vaccine of feminism and solidarity. Pastoralists, peasants, fisherfolks, agricultural workers, indigenous and landless people across member organisations responded positively to this call for solidarity this year. They organised peasant fairs showcasing diversities in food production and the work women and people of diverse identities do in the farms and inside rural social movements.

Several solidarity actions that took place emphasised the urgent need for food sovereignty to positively address the crisis humanity is currently experiencing and transform our societies. Peasants also emphasised that the UN Declaration on Peasants' Rights adopted in 2018 is a crucial tool to guarantee rights and gender justice in rural and urban communities.

With colourful marches, sit-ins, food donations, forums, meetings, and even blood donations, they showed the importance of feminism in the struggle against patriarchy and capitalism. We share a summary of the actions carried out by our LVC member organisations in different territories around the world. Read More

FEATURED ARTICLES
Peasant movements, workers and activists in Asia mobilise on International Women's Day. Here is a summary of the many actions that took place around Asia in March. 
Gender-based violence in the rural sector, understood as physical, sexual and psychological violence against women, is a central area of work for our member organisations since 2008. 
As capitalist countries rush to save their economies, they have left the workers who provide the basic necessities of human life to risk their lives on the front lines. Women make up the overwhelming majority of those who work in these industries. Read the statement.
On the 25th anniversary of the collective construction of Food Sovereignty, this is our tangible and sustainable way to face the different crises we live today. We need to end the systemic violence of capitalism and patriarchy, which today violate the rights of women, diversities, children, and the working class. Read La Via Campesina's call for mobilization. 
In the most difficult moment of the pandemic, which is plaguing Brazil and which – so far – has killed more than 260 thousand people, women from more than 80 organizations in the popular field, came together to support and spread solidarity in actions in the four corners of the country. 
Peasant Organisations in Spain – COAG and the Confederation of Rural Women (CERES) – demand that the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the Rural Development Plans (RDP) be drawn up with a gender perspective, as they marginalise the lands of peasant women and livestock breeders.
This March 8, 2021, the peasant members of the Sindicato Labrego Galego, SLG, also supported the feminist strike. One year after the last women's strike and for peasant women, in terms of equality, the situation continues to deteriorate.
Srilanka: Women step up protest against exploitative micro-finance firms in rural areas. According to activists in Srilanka, an estimate of 28 million people are caught in a debt trap and over 200 were forced to commit suicide. 
 
 

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Nyéléni Newsletter: Food sovereignty in a time of pandemic


When the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 30 January 2020, few imagined the scale of the devastation that the disease would wreak across the world, or for how long it would last. This edition of the Nyéléni newsletter presents excerpts from some of the documentation and research conducted by practitioners and advocates of food sovereignty. Download Now. 

VIDEOS
#LaViaCampesina - Song "Triste, loca o mala", by the group Francisco El Hombre. The clip features more than 100 landless women from across Brazil in a show of strength and solidarity. 
 
 

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