Messages for IWA’s 15th anniversary
Marie Boti - Vice Chair of IWA EC, founding EC member
I am writing today from the city of Montreal in Canada, where 15 years ago, on August 16, 2010, we founded the International Women’s Alliance, IWA for short.
We decided to build IWA at Commission 7 of the International League of People’s Struggle : the aim was to create a women’s alliance which would coordinate local, regional and international campaigns, promote mutual support and the sharing of resistance strategies, and mobilize women around the world in the struggle against imperialism, violence and capitalist globalization.
The founding took place at the culmination of an international conference of over 350 women from around the world, organized by Gabriela Philippines, Asian Rural Women’s Network, Action Network for Marriage Migrants Rights and Empowerment (AMORRE), and from Montreal, Women of Diverse Origins.
Over the 15 years since that inspiring day, we have built our movement, with organizations from four continents, confronting wars, a pandemic and repression of many of our leaders. We salute the guiding women of Valor who we have lost over the past 15 years, along with the women veterans of people’s struggle for land, labor rights, equality and just peace in different countries, including Edith Ballantyne, Nanay Mameng, Berta Caceres, and Irene Fernandez.
The call to unite women and organize within a strong anti-imperialist alliance is more relevant than ever today.
We refuse to bear the brunt of the economic crisis brought about by this system which causes so much hunger, unemployment, forced migration, and militarization all over the world.
We refuse to join imperialist wars and genocide and we refuse to stand by and listen to its apologists.
More than ever, the time is now to bridge our struggles and strengthen the solidarity of women’s organizations worldwide. On our 15th birthday, I invite you to join us by becoming a member of IWA, by participating in our campaigns : Women Over Profit and Women against imperialist war and militarization.
Long live international solidarity!
And as Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong said ‘Women hold up half the sky. It is up to us to conquer it!’
Liza Maza - First Chairwoman of IWA, 2010-2015
I share the enthusiasm and joy with my sisters and comrades in struggle across the globe to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the International Women’s Alliance (IWA). Through all of these 15 years the IWA has relentlessly pursued the democratic, anti- patriarchal, anti-fascist and anti-imperialist struggles of women especially the struggles of the women workers, peasants, indigenous peoples, urban poor, youth and students.
The coming together of 400 women from about 12 countries, most of whom represented grassroots women’s mass organizations in the Montreal International Women’s Conference on August 13 to 15, 2010 culminated in the founding of the IWA. Two years prior, in 2008, the workshop of the women’s commission of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle adopted a resolution to hold a women’s conference in 2010, the centennial of the International Working Women’s Day and initiate the founding of an anti-imperialist global women’s movement. IWA’s founding then was not only historic but very timely as the crisis of the global capitalist system unfolded with the bursting of the housing bubble in 2008 leading to the global financial crisis and prolonged economic depression and multiple crises that persist to this day.
The IWA has served as a venue for women’s solidarity in resistance as women especially those in the margins of society face the unbridled onslaught of capitalist plunder, exploitation, oppression, repression, fascism and war.
Member organizations of IWA organized study sessions and regular political discussions on the impact of neoliberal globalization on women from different countries; they mobilized women in protest actions like marches, demonstrations and other forms of creative protests; they organized regional chapters and linked up with other women and mixed formations to broaden and stregthen the democratic and anti-imperialist struggle.
Today, as the conflict among imperialist countries intensify with the US supported by the NATO and other allies leading proxy wars and wars of aggression and intervention against colonies, neo-colonies and sovereign states and peoples in many parts of the world, the women with other oppressed and exploited classes continue to stand in unity and resistance.
To all my dear IWA sisters: Carry forward the fire of resistance to victory where all nations are free and women are free!
Azra Sayeed - Chairwoman of IWA, 2015-2024
It’s a great moment of pride and joy that we are standing together celebrating 15 years of struggle against the vicious violence of imperialism. IWA represents the determination of our sisters joined to fight against monopoly capital, feudalism and patriarchy. The massive debt that the puppet governments of semi-colonial, semi-feudal hand in hand with imperialist institutions have foisted on women and their communities, and the resulting misery means that we must smash monopoly capital.
It’s of the utmost importance that we continue to grow, continue to build our strengths, our unities among the working women, the peasants, and other marginalized sectors that face the brunt of exploitation and oppression forced upon us through neoliberalism. Given the continually rising wars of aggression that U.S. imperialism unleashes across the world with women suffering the violence consequences , it is only through the united front of women that we can liberate ourselves and our communities, gain an equitable world free from indignities of hunger and poverty, from imperialism.
Let us move forward to further strengthen our militant women’s movement to realise our dreams and our vision.
Helda Khasmy - Chairperson, SERUNI | IWA EC, 2015-2024
Time has flown so quickly, and suddenly, it dawned on us that the International Women’s Alliance (IWA) has been doing its extraordinary work for 15 years since its establishment on August 10, 2010. It has been an honor, as a representative of Serikat Perempuan Indonesia (SERUNI/Indonesia’s Women Alliance), to have been part of the IWA Executive Committee.
The birth of the IWA is the result of various forms of class struggle in every country and globally. The Unity of organizations and individuals working to unite the women's struggle as an anti-imperialist front is a necessity at a time when the intensity of economic overproduction, the deprivation of political rights, and military intervention in the political sphere were growing at such a ferocious rate.
The burden of life and class disparities as well as the deepening crisis of imperialism in every country in Asia, Africa, Latin America-Caribbean, America-Canada and Australia-Pacific Island Countries have provided the conditions for the rise of women from various classes and sectors to take part in the struggle for national liberation and the tireless struggle for a new system without imperialism. The struggle undertaken by IWA is urgently needed to end the most horrific face of genocide and unjust war that is currently taking place in Gaza as one of the worst faces of oppression and deprivation of the basic rights of women and children.
The semi-colonial and semi-feudal system, maintained and sustained by the state and imperialist powers through their puppets in Indonesia, has timelessly placed a burden on the lives and continuing class disparity on the people and women. Under the rule of the new puppet government, President Prabowo Subianto, the worsening chronic crisis has given rise to a sharpened and fierce class struggle in hundreds of cities since August 25, 2025. The anti-bureaucratic capitalist movement is fervently burning due to the burden of life that has overflowed into anger, where the yearly suppression of the aspirations and interests of the people for a better fate as well as the basic demands for genuine land reform and national industry are at the root. SERUNI, alongside other national democratic mass organizations, especially Front Mahasiswa Nasional (FMN/National Student Front), is at the heart of this movement in many cities. What SERUNI is doing in Indonesia is an integral and inseparable part of IWA’s global anti-imperialist-anti-fascist struggle.
The rising class struggle in every country will continue to sharpen and intensify, along with the efforts of the state and imperialist powers and their puppets in various countries to maintain their domination through deception and armed violence. Hopefully IWA, together with all its members, will continue to fight to strengthen, advance, and expand its political and class struggle to defeat imperialist domination; the root of all discrimination against women, a system based on male domination, the main preserver of the double burden for women in the world.
Happy 15th Anniversary Long Live International Solidarity! Long live IWA! Oppressed Nations, People and Women of the World, Unite!
Coni Ledesma - IWA EC, 2015-2024
Great big congratulations to the Executive Council and to all the member organizations in IWA on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of her Founding.
IWA was founded during the Third International Assembly of the ILPS. It was during the meeting of Commission 7, the commission on women, when women from different organizations expressed the need to build an anti-imperialist organization of women. The need to join forces and work together was the motivation to build the International Women’s Alliance.
I have seen IWA grow and develop since her founding. Today, there are regional chapters in Asia Pacific and Europe. The Americas are also working hard to build their chapter.
The Third International Assembly held in Penang , Malaysia was a great success! The enthusiasm of all the participants , their militance and determination to build IWA was inspiring .
Let us continue growing, building, strengthening ourselves. With imperialism determined to rule the world with war, our commitment and our resolve to fight imperialism must spur us on to build IWA as the biggest anti imperialist organization of women.
Makibaka Huwag matakot! Struggle- do not be afraid!
Joms Salvador - GABRIELA Philippines
GABRIELA Alliance of Filipino Women takes pride in being a founding member of the International Women’s Alliance, a vital platform uniting grassroots women’s movements across the globe. IWA provides an important platform to build anti-imperialist solidarity in confronting the deepening neoliberal crisis and escalating attacks on women and people’s movements. Through IWA, we affirm our commitment to advancing the struggles of working and oppressed women and strengthen our collective power to resist imperialism and fight for liberation and justice.