PRESS RELEASE . . . PRESS RELEASE . . . PRESS RELEASE . . .

From: WinWages (Women’s International Network for Wages for Caring Work)
Red Salario (Red Internacional de Mujeres por un Salario para el Trabajo de Cuidado)

INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT FOR WOMEN IN ARGENTINA

LONDON: SATURDAY 26 JANUARY 2-3pm
“Cacerolazo”: Pots and pans protest at the World Bank,
New Zealand House, Haymarket SW1

ON 26 January, women in London as well as Peru, Spain, USA and other countries will demonstrate to show international support for our sisters in Argentina who are raising the voices of grassroots women.

It is women who carry the greatest yet the least recognised burden of policies of genocide and theft imposed by the IMF/World Bank and implemented by corrupt politicians, trade unions and NGOs all over the world. Women and men from countries of the South will highlight the effects of such policies on women in their home countries.

In response to the collapse of the economy, millions of people in Argentina have taken to the streets to demonstrate their total rejection of all political parties
and politically-aligned trade unions and NGOs. In addition to the
famous ‘cacerolazos’, a pots and pans protest, self-mobilised neighbourhood
assemblies are being held all over the country.

The Sindicato de Amas de Casa de Santa Fe (Housewives Trade Union), an
autonomous grassroots organisation, is holding daily women’s assemblies in the poorest neighbourhoods and is circulating the attached Women’s Manifesto. SAC co-ordinates the Global Women’s Strike in Argentina and is part of the WinWages* international network, which includes organisations of domestic workers, Indigenous and other rural workers, sex workers and other grassroots women, in Guyana, Peru, India and Uganda, as well as other women’s organisations in Ireland, Spain and the US. The Strike network extends to women in over 60 countries.

Following the wise example of the Argentinian movement, politically aligned speeches will not be welcome.

Women’s Manifesto by SAC in English follows.

Contact: Nina Lopez-Jones and Didi Rossi
Crossroads Women’s Centre, 230A Kentish Town Road
London NW5 2AB; Tel: 020-7482 2496 Fax: 020-7209 4761
Email:  crossroadswomencentre@compuserve.com
Website: womenstrike8m.server101.com

17 January 2002

THE WOMEN OF SANTA FE, ARGENTINA, SPEAK

In the face of the increasingly serious situation of our people, we feel we
have the responsibility and also the renewed hope for our voices to be
heard. Here is our proposal.
Sindicato de Amas de Casa, Santa Fe

WOMEN'S MANIFESTO

We are the women who work outside of the home and get the lowest wages, and
those who work only in the home and get no wages.

We are the women who have to send our daughters and sons to the soup
kitchens because we have nothing to give them to eat, and those who still
have something but don’t know for how long.

We are the mothers whose children have had to leave school, and those whose
children stayed in school but now are leaving the country because the
education they got doesn’t help them to get a job.

We are the women in the hospital queues early in the morning waiting to be
seen, and the older people and the pensioners who may have social security
but this has been bankrupted by successive governments.

We are the women who emigrated from the interior or from other Latin
American countries because we had nothing to eat, and who ended up, more
discriminated, in slums.

We are the teenagers who don’t want to be mothers so young but are deprived
of that choice. We are the adult women who want a better present for
ourselves and a better future for our daughters. And we are the older women
discarded because of age who today have to support our grandchildren because
their parents can’t.

We are the women farmers who since childhood have worked the land that today
is up for auction.

We are the women who have never had anything, and those who had life savings
in the bank which today they want to steal from us.

We are the women who suffer violence inside and outside our homes.

We are the women discriminated against because of the colour of our skin,
because we are domestic workers, because we are sex workers, or because of
our sexual preference.

We are each and every woman in Santa Fe, Argentina, Latin America . . .

WE WOMEN ARE ALREADY BUILDING A BETTER PRESENT AND A BETTER FUTURE!

We want a different life for ourselves and our families where the priorities
are: the welfare of the people rather than the pockets of the usual
capitalists, the dignity of the people and social justice rather than
charity given for political advantage, accountability rather than
corruption. We know that this is possible.

THEREFORE WE DEMAND THAT:

- The money collected from oil export rights must not be used to save the
banks, nor is the country to be further indebted to international creditors
for that purpose.

- The banks, major supermarkets and privatised companies, must be made to
pay employers’ contributions, to be used to reactivate the country’s
economy.

- Taxes must be imposed not on essentials but on non-essential luxury goods.

WITH THESE RESOURCES, AND WITH WHAT CAN BE COUNTED ON FROM THE SUSPENSION OF THE EXTERNAL DEBT:

- An employment benefit must be introduced for unemployed heads of
households, women and men.

- Women must be prioritised for benefits distributed through employment
plans without doing community work as a condition for receiving them, so
that mothers in the greatest poverty with five, six or more children, are
not prevented from taking care of them.

- A wage must be paid for caring work since the care of people by women and
girls is a priority activity which must be recognised and paid for.

- The social and productive value of housewives must be recognised through a
pension.

- A benefit must be paid for each child, and to ensure it is spent on the
children, it must be paid to the mother.

WE ALSO DEMAND THAT:

- Small savers’ deposits be refunded – these savings are often compensation
for redundancy; their loss has made the situation of those who have nothing
to live on, even more desperate.

- The auction of small farmers’ land be suspended – they have become
indebted through high-interest banks loans and the loss of value of their
produce.

TO ENSURE ACCOUNTABILITY, IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT:

- The Supreme Court of justice, which has shielded the corrupt and violated
the most elementary constitutional rights of the citizen, be put on trial.

- The families of the 35 people who were murdered in the events of 19 and 20
December get justice.

- The employment plans are submitted to social audits by women in each
neighbourhood to prevent them from being used politically by those who
negotiate with the needs of the poorest.

We put forward these ideas for the consideration of all women and invite
each of you to express your views, to discuss, dissent, propose, and not to
allow others to decide for or against us any more.

Let us meet in the neighbourhoods, in the organisations to which we belong
or with which we are active, to discuss alternatives and proposals, and
circulate them, using all the means at our disposal: by post, media,
telephones, word of mouth.

Although women have always been involved in the popular struggle, from the
Indigenous and slave rebellions at the time of the Conquest, to the movement
of the mothers during the dictatorship, to today’s ‘cacerolazo’, we have not
been listened to and our demands have been postponed in the name of ‘more
urgent’ needs.

Other women in Latin America and in the world are banging their pots not
only in support of the Argentinian people but on their own behalf, because
beyond national realities, we women have needs and demands which bring us
together as sisters.

Our power is in our autonomy, we will not allow anyone to tell us what to
think or what to do.

We know what are our needs and those of our families, and therefore we will
all together find the ways to build a country and a world which starts with
people’s needs rather than corporate greed.

Let us defend with all the energy, intelligence and passion of which we
women are capable, the dignity and the future that we deserve.

Join this call and invite other women to join. We must make our voice and
our proposals heard in every neighbourhood, every village, every town, every
city . . .

Tell us what you are doing, proposing, how you are organising. Our centre
in Santa Fe is at: Francia 3036, Tel: 0342-4530216, 0342-49600868
Emails:  izanutig@gigared.com  nkreig@arnet.com.ar