On August 9, South Africa commemorates the 1956 Women’s March, when over 20,000 women  united to protest apartheid’s pass laws. This historic political act of confrontation  remains an act  of feminist resistance, that continues to inspire movements across the globe.

In 2025, this legacy takes on renewed urgency. As women worldwide mobilize under the 6th International Action of the World March of Women (WMW), feminists in South Africa  join the call to confront the intersecting systems of capitalism, patriarchy, colonialism, and militarism that threaten our lives, our lands, and our futures.

This year’s action is guided by four mobilizing areas:

Peace and Demilitarization

The World March of Women South Africa stand in decided solidarity with the Palestinian people, demanding an immediate end to the genocide and starvation of civilians in Gaza, and the dismantling of The Zionist Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine.  These human rights violations are not  isolated tragedies, but a systemic tools of domination,where siege, starvation, and mass killing are weaponized to erase a people and their future. We are committed to justice, we reject the normalization of war crimes and the global complicity that sustains them. We call on feminist movements worldwide to demand for the liberation of Palestine not as an act of symbolic solidarity, but as a structural imperative rooted in our shared struggle against militarism, colonialism, and violence.

Violence Against Women

We recognize that violence against women is structural, global, and intersectional. From sexual violence in conflict zones to the criminalization of women activists, patriarchal violence is used to silence and control bodies. We call for justice and peace  for women in Western Sahara, and all territories Sudan and Congo where occupation and war weaponize  violence.

Women’s Work and Economic Autonomy

We reject the exploitation of women’s labour formal and informal, and demand feminist economic alternatives rooted in care, reciprocity, and collective survival.  Women’s work is often invisible, precarious, and essential. We uplift the labor of Sahrawi women building institutions in refugee camps, and Palestinian women sustaining life under siege.

The Common Good and Access to Resources

We defend land, water, and natural resources from corporate plunder and colonial extraction. In Western Sahara, Morocco’s illegal exploitation of phosphates and fisheries is a direct assault on the Sahrawi people’s sovereignty. In Gaza, Israel’s blockade and destruction of infrastructure is a calculated denial of access to the commons.
In Congo, multinational mining operations, controlled by militarized networks, strip the land of coltan, cobalt, and gold, fueling conflict and dispossession .
In Sudan, foreign agribusiness and extractive deals deepen displacement and ecological devastation, entrenching war economies that profit from land grabs and water control.

“The women of 1956 marched for freedom, under the banner of “you strike a women you strike a rock”   Today, we march for liberation ,from Pretoria to Tindouf, from Cape Town to Gaza : Our solidarity is not symbolic, it is structural, strategic, and rooted in shared struggle”.

As South Africa honours its feminist past, we call on governments, civil society, and global movements to act with courage and conscience. The liberation of Palestine and Western Sahara is not peripheral,it is central to the global feminist agenda.

#August9 #WomensDaySA #WorldMarchOfWomen #FreePalestine #FreeWesternSahara #LifeOverProfit #PeaceOverWar