Report of first women’s anti-war picket Tuesday (9 October) was the first women’s picket against the war. Women from many different races, ages and nationalities came together to put our collective voices to Downing Street and the rest of the world. We told them that we will not stand for the bombing in our names and demanded an immediate end to this obscene slaughter. We call on all justice movements to side with carers against the war. Lively and determined chants rang out across Whitehall as dramatic puppets and banners attracted the attention of passers-by. The crowd listened intently as grandmothers and mothers, and other women and men from Afghanistan, Britain, Israel, Sweden, the US, and Zimbabwe, spoke of how their hearts went out to mothers in Afghanistan who along with their children are starving while living in terror of being bombed. It was reported that in armed conflict the majority of those killed and injured are women and children. One mother spoke out for the 7 million people already starving in Afghanistan and the 1 in 4 children who die before age 5 – the BBC has reported that one of the worst humanitarian disasters of recent times has begun to unfold. A lesbian mother of a 19-year-old boy, bringing tears to many eyes, felt for Afghan mothers who are hiding their sons from conscription, and said if they came for her son she would do anything to hide him. An Afghan woman was furious that food parcels are being dropped into countryside littered with 10 million landmines and that children running to pick up the food are being blown up, adding to the half a million already disabled, many of whom are orphans. A Black American woman reported that many people oppose the war in the US but it has gone unreported. She called for Black people who make up 40% of the American armed forces to refuse to slaughter other people of colour. Others demanded that CNN and other media show what the bombs are doing to our sisters and brothers in Afghanistan and stop dehumanising the war by calling it “collateral damage”. Exciting news was given of a picket of the US embassy in Guyana by Indigenous women and women of Indian and African descent against the war, which got wide media coverage. A Jewish anti-Zionist man said the women’s picket was a great strength for men against the war. He said Sharon was guilty of genocide in Palestine. Quoting from a Ugandan refugee in London, a woman said “while men can run away from an invading army, we women may be pregnant, and we are responsible for the children. We can’t run.” She had been raped at gunpoint. The rape of women and children is always a consequence of war. Pensioners, women with disabilities and mothers all called for the $40 billion lavished on the war to be reallocated to women and therefore to whole communities, beginning with women in Afghanistan. ANTI-WAR MESSAGE FROM THE WOMEN OF UGANDA Dear Sisters, We the women of Kaabong Women’s Group on behalf of the rural grassroots women in Uganda, especially Karamoja region, are opposing military actions, budgets, arms fairs, and highly condemn the acts of terrorism and the revenge the USA has taken. Women, children are dying innocently. We bring this message of millions of women deprived of their basic human rights and status in all parts of the world and we join the International Women Count Network in London as we come to the third Global Women’s Strike in which we shall all participate, with the theme “Invest in caring not killing”. Women and children are the majority of those killed and wounded in armed conflicts, besides their hard work of life-giving, going through severe hardship, cleaning, nursing, building, walking miles for clean water. All of us who have joined the Global Women’s Strike are here on earth as living witnesses of thousands of people – women who suffer acts of violence and injustice caused by armed conflicts. We forced political and economic leaders to listen to us about military budgets, but we’ve failed to obtain even one satisfactory response to our demands. The demands stand unchanged. It is up to us to continue acting with all anti-neo-liberal globalization and anti-sexist movements to force international financial institutions (World Bank & IMF) to radically change course and to make the UN assume veritable political leadership in the people’s, particularly women’s, interests. We must also find the means and the platform from which to continue our action to eliminate violence in the world. We have a lot on our plates. Members of Kaabong Women’s group had a silence of prayers for all those who died in the terrorists act in New York and Washington and for the Women and Children who died in Afghanistan. Throughout history, women have crossed geographical, cultural and ideological borders in search of peace. We the women can find an end to this terrible act. Join us on the third Global Women’s Strike so that we make it real: “CARING NOT KILLING” Yours in Power to the Sisters, Grace Loumo