Join 24 Hours of International Feminist Actions in December

On December 10, 2012, Human Rights Day, the World March of Women (WMW) has called for women around the world to organize a 1-hour action from 12 noon to 1:00 p.m. (your local time) highlighting the values of equality, justice, freedom, solidarity and peace and showing our resistance against militarization. These values are reflected in the WMW’s Global Charter for Humanity as a vision of the type of world women want. Because of our common values, WILPF and the Cuba and Bolivarian Alliance Issue Committee have been part of the WMW network that is composed of hundreds of feminist organizations in five different continents including the U.S.   

Begin organizing a one hour action of your choice to join this international action. Women around the world are counting on our solidarity!  For more information and to publicize your action, please contact Cindy at cindydomingo@gmail.com.

24 hours of Feminist Action across the World
 

Background:
During the 8th International Meeting held in the Philippines in November 2011, WMW delegates from all five continents met to assess our 2010 Third International Action and to debate how we see the WMW as a movement to be reckoned with for the year 2015,  and our challenges, strategies and concrete actions for the 2012 – 2013 period.

For 2015, we envisage ourselves as a strong, permanent, feminist, anti-capitalist movement that is present in many more countries, that builds an internationalism rooted in local struggles and puts an end to the isolation of communities who directly suffer the impacts of militarisation and the advance of capital into all areas of life. A movement that acts in alliance with other mixed movements, which, in turn, commit themselves to fighting patriarchy both in their practices and discourse. A movement capable of building specific alliances with other women’s organisations, while constantly reaffirming our political positions. A movement that, by strengthening international solidarity, strengthens local struggles. We want a WMW in which all women feel represented by the feminism that we are building; where there is a greater presence of young, rural, indigenous and migrant women; and that represents all women suffering from oppression. A movement with greater autonomy and self-sufficiency in financial terms, with clear international demands, capable of expressing the struggles of all peoples. A movement that allows us to transcend victories: to go from temporary autonomous zones to permanent autonomous zones.

Building the “24 Hours of Feminist Action across the World” is key in our strategy to achieve this vision.

Some guidelines:
On the 17th October 2005 we performed actions from midday until 1 pm in each consecutive meridian, in a 24-hour vigil of Feminist Solidarity, thus showing our support for the Women's Global Charter for Humanity and its values. The "wave" began in the Pacific Islands (New Caledonia, Samoa and others) and continued throughout Asia, Middle East, Africa, simultaneously in various countries of Europe and then in the Americas.

The proposal presented at the 8th International Meeting is to repeat this action and experience. National Coordinating Bodies (NCBs) are free to organise any action to be inserted as part of that journey.

Date: 10th December 2012.
Time: Each country organises a 1-hour action from midday to 1 pm (local time)

The contents:
As our priority, we would like to highlight the five values of our Women’s Global Charter for Humanity: equality, justice, freedom, solidarity and peace, linking it up with the four WMW Action Areas.

We invite the NCBs to freely organise their activities, but expressing our views on the current socio-political-economic context: capitalism in crisis reinforcing patriarchy with increasing conservatism, militarization and land-grabbing, wrapped up in the logic of expanding market boundaries.

Some countries and regions have already started the debate around priorities for the 24 hours. Europe wants to emphasize the right to abortion and public health, while Oceania, environmental issues. A special focus on our resistance against militarization and criminalization of social struggles can link these different themes and strengthen our common action. Paraphrasing the Filipino poet Joi Barrios: being a woman is like living in a constant war.

Actions may express our alternatives: feminism as a project / process of transformation, WMW Action Areas, WMW demands within regions and countries (for example, the European campaign on the impact of crises on women’s lives), and women’s resistances within territories.

Declarations:
The IC and IS will write and disseminate a short international declaration that contextualises our struggles at the international level, and expresses our political analysis and demands. We would like this declaration to be written in more poetic language.

The international declaration can be translated into regional declarations that will focus on specific struggles, resistances and alternatives.

A symbol:
We need to have a strong symbol (such the solidarity quilt in 2005), that permits us to link local realities into a global action. One idea is to create a blog linked to the WMW website in which NCBs can post a photo just after their event, with the aim of ‘completing’ the planet/globe by the end of the day, building a kind of online “solidarity and feminist quilt”.

Another idea is to create ‘human’ messages, with many women in a line (each one holding a letter to spell out words and sentences)... NCBs can then take pictures of these messages and send them to other NCBs in their region or in the world.

We ask NCBs and Participating Groups to discuss and send further ideas on how we can symbolically express this action to the IS and their regional IC members.

Mobilisation target:
In 2005, 35 countries participated in the 24 Hours of Feminist Solidarity, and in our 8th International Meeting 35 countries also participated. We therefore believe that organising the 2012 24 Hours of Feminist Action in 35 countries is a feasible goal, but we will challenge ourselves to go beyond this number.

Information recording:
We will send guidelines before the actions, explaining to NCBs what kind of information we need to receive, what kind of images, etc. This will make it easier for us at the IS and the IC to systematise reports on the action – before, during and after it.

Another idea is to organise ‘live-streaming’ of the 24 Hours of Feminist Action, with live coverage of actions via the internet. We are looking into how to put this idea into practice.