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Women's Weekly Anti-War Picket

Wages for Housework Campaign | 08.10.2001 09:14

Women's Weekly Anti-War Picket starting tomorrow, tuesday. Letter to the Independent.

Tuesday 9 October

Women’s Weekly Anti-War Picket
All welcome – come and say why you oppose the war. Globally, $800 is spent annually on military budgets, while only $80bn would provide the essentials of life for everyone. We demand that military budgets be redirected to women and therefore to the community – invest in caring not killing.

Organised by International Wages for Housework Campaign
Opposite Downing St, Whitehall SW1.
Tube: Westminster/Charing Cross
5-6pm (every Tuesday)
020 7482 2496, mail:  crossroadswomenscentre@compuserve.com


Letter to the Independent 29 Sept 2001
The West should wage a war on want instead

Sir: Anne McElvoy's dismissal of antiwar sentiments hides the fact that the majority against the war are women, who welcome the Liberal Democrat MP Jenny Tong's call for groceries instead of bombs (`Against the war? So what would your alternative be?", 26 September). Women know all too well the connection between poverty, starvation, war and other desperate measures.

Women do two thirds of the world's work, mostly unwaged, and after every disaster, death, destruction and brutalisation it's women who help people recover and rebuild their lives. But because this work is unwaged and invisible our voices are largely ignored. Women and children are also 90 per cent of those killed or wounded in armed conflicts, and 80 percent of refugees worldwide. Mothers everywhere struggle to raise children only to see them slaughtered as cannon fodder.

The demand that the $800bn spent worldwide on military budgets be redirected into women's and children's hands is growing. Bush got $40bn for a "war on terrorism", on top of $500bn already committed to Star Wars. Why not allocate the $40bn to women and children, beginning in Afghanistan? This would prevent the destruction of more innocent lives and strengthen women's opposition to the Taliban.

Ms McElvoy asks, "What would you do?" Stop war, poverty and starvation by re-directing military budgets into women's hands and therefore to the community.

KAY CHAPMAN
Wages, for Housework Campaign London
Crossroads Women’s Centre
230 Kentish Town Rd, London NW5 2AB
Tel: 020 7482 2496 Fax: 020 209 4761
Email:  crossroadswomenscentre@compuserve.com

Wages for Housework Campaign
- Homepage: http://womenstrike8m.server101.com