In Switzerland as elsewhere in the world, Covid-19 has placed women at the forefront of the fight against the pandemic. No one can deny it: without them, without their work seven days a week, 24 hours a day, survival would be unimaginable. This work may be essential for our lives and the functioning of society as a whole, but patriarchal capitalism does not recognize it.
Worse still, everything announces that women – above all migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and undocumented migrants – will pay a heavy price in the post-covid-19 crisis. The sexist and racist discrimination, violence, exploitation and oppression that in June 2019 led hundreds of thousands of women to take part in the feminist strike in Switzerland, are now aggravated.
Due to the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, mobilisations this year could not reach a level comparable to last year’s. However, in all Swiss cities, women – of all generations, sexual orientation and origin – responded, as they did last year, to the collectives’ call for a feminist strike. At precisely 3.24 p.m. an intense cry of anger was heard everywhere. The many slogans written on improvised billboards testify to the fact that the determination to organize so as not to limit oneself to a simple denunciation of injustice and violence is intact. We are not giving up. No return to the male norm. Coronavirus or not, we’ll be there! Change is now!
Tear down all the walls
The Covid-19 pandemic does not diminish our will to resist to live, nor our determination to march to transform! Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the closure of the WMW’s 5th International Action on October 17th, 2020 will not be able to take the form initially planned for an international activity on the border between Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador in the Americas region and, for Europe, a feminist mobilization on the French-Italian border of Menton-Vintimilla to denounce the murderous migration policies. But we are not abandoning this project, because the walls industry we are fighting against is more murderous than ever. The transnationals overexploit the workers and destroy their lives.
Millions of people throw themselves on the road to exile in the hope of escaping war, hunger and violence. Nothing and no one is spared to save the profit of a minority (1%) that dominates the world (99%). The pandemic aggravates the situation, but it also sharpens our will to resist and to fight to tear down all the walls that rise up against the rights of women and peoples. The new agenda and the shape of our action at the borders will be clarified as soon as international gatherings are again possible. In the meantime, we will multiply actions in various forms to denounce the policies of criminalisation of mobility, embodied in the border closures, whose harmful effects are particularly detrimental to women and LGBTQI+ people who are on the road to exile.
All persons and organisations who have proposals or who are interested in these actions can contact us by writing to info@marchemondiale.ch for whoever lives in Switzerland toutesauxfrontieresfr@gmail.com for whoever lives in Europe.
Report from WMW Switzerland
We resist to live, we march to transform!
Liaison Newsletter – July 2020