On the Global Launch of the Free the Migrants Campaign: Continue to Counter Rising Fascism with Working Women's Unity!
The International Women's Alliance congratulates All Workers United on the successful launch of Free the Migrants Campaign earlier this month. As IWA, we call on our members to take up this campaign as part of our Women over Profit campaign and in the spirit of our ongoing call "Counter Rising Fascism with Working Women's Unity!"
The current global situation is one of heightened war, economic crisis and the increase in neoliberal policies which is heightening the exploitative and oppressive conditions for workers and migrants today. For peasant and indigenous women, the issues of uneven development, mining, logging, land grabbing, heightening militarization and foreign dependence for agricultural imports wears away at the chance of safe and decent livelihoods which creates massive internal and international migration in search of survival. For working women, the issues of rising informal employment, neoliberal policies, union busting, targeting of union activists, rising cost of living and declining wages causes women to migrate outside of their communities looking for work abroad where they face more hardships. In turn, funneling migrant women into a reserve army of labor that provides cheap, informal, and flexible labor for capitalist economies. Often, migrant working women will take on care, agricultural, and service work that are some of the most vulnerable sectors within their host countries.
Since the outbreak of the US-led assault on Iran at the end of February the world has been plagued with increased violence and increase costs of fuel and basic goods. In a world that was already burdened by economic crisis brought about by stagnant wages and high inflation (stag-flation) the added additional costs have resulted in price-hikes that have far outpaced the wages of workers around the world. The Philippines faces the highest fuel costs in the region with diesel prices rising by 124%, gasoline by 60.5%, and liquefied petroleum gas by 44.7%. In May, Kenyan bus operators who provide most of Kenya's public transport launched a strike in response to the sharp fuel price hikes as a result of the war on Iran. Kenyan police responded with violence: killing 4, injuring 30, and arresting more than 700.
In June police in Mississippi, in the U.S., shot and killed 1-year old Kohen Wiley outside a grocery store. Kohen was accompanied by two caretakers who were accused of stealing diapers for Kohen. US social services provided to mothers and families do not cover the cost of diapers which average as much as $100 a month for a single child. Many families across the US are forced to choose between gasoline, food, rent and diapers each month because of limited social services. Protests in Mississippi have demanded accountability to police officers and have drawn attention to the criminalization of mothers and families. Bernice King shared: "We are treating items on a shelf as more valuable than a child. That is not just bad policing; it is a moral collapse.”
In Kenya, amidst rising fuel costs, government corruption, and state violence against protesters - women rallied to draw further attention to increasing rates of femicide across the country. In a statement Revolutionary Women's League of Kenya linked the high rates of femicide to the overall political and cultural crisis of Kenya and countered the mainstream narrative that high rates of femicide are an individual issue issue to women alone:
The violence directed against women does not emerge in a vacuum. It develops within a society marked by mass unemployment, deepening poverty, widening inequality, social insecurity and the commodification of human life. Women are often concentrated in the most precarious forms of labour, bear the burden of unpaid reproductive work, and are frequently pushed into conditions of dependency by material circumstances beyond their control. These conditions do not excuse violence. They reveal the social environment in which violence is reproduced and normalized. Read Full Statement here
Political crisis and economic crisis also lead to competition between countries - leading to intensifying war and conflict. These wars put already vulnerable people in more precarious conditions which increase rates of violence, economic hardship, and forced displacement. Women and children are especially vulnerable as they are not only susceptible to violence brought by wars, but are also treated as tools of war and specifically targeted in an attempt for state forces to further weaken those they are waging war against. During a cabinet meeting in June, Security Minister of the Zionist State Itamar Ben-Gvir proposed that the best tactic to weaken Hezbollah and give the Zionists an upper hand in Lebanon would be "conquering territory and killing many terrorists, but also detaining their women and youth and taking them to terrorist prisons, That's what hurts them the most." Because of the Zionist assault on Lebanon an estimated 49.3 thousand people have been internally displaced - a majority of those displaced are mothers with their children with women and girls accounting for about 52% and children under 18 accounting for 27% overall. The comments by Ben Gvir are part of his bloody legacy of attempting to normalize the use of rape and sexualized violence as a tool of genocide against the entire Palestinian people and any group that challenges Zionist rule. A recent report released by the Palestinian Feminist Collective corroborates stories and data showing that sexual and gender based violence are an institutionalized tactic of the Zionist entity in their ongoing genocide against Palestinians since pre-1948 and with rates increasing drastically since the genocide against Gaza from 2023 onward. Download full report from PFC here. Around the world, corrupt governments treat women and children as collateral when waging wars; rather than upholding international humanitarian law and ensuring civilians are protected.
As the global crises in economics and politics continue to worsen, the ruling elite of each country utilize fascist policies to try and safeguard their own interests and power; catching the most vulnerable people (workers, peasants, women, children) in their wake. Fascist attacks against migrants across the world have led to deaths in detention and forced separation but there are also impacts that are harder to quantify: such as migrants avoiding medical appointments, missing non-immigration related court hearings, or not reporting violence and harassment for fear of retaliation. One such example is that of pregnant Haitian migrants in the Dominican Republic who have been avoiding giving birth in hospitals for fear of being detained and deported back to Haiti. The Dominican Republic has been waging aggressive deportation campaigns, expelling thousands of Haitians who have fled a humanitarian crisis in neighboring Haiti. Pregnant Haitian women face increased risks of illness, infection or hemorrhages which are life threatening outside a medical setting. No woman deserves to be forced to give birth in the shadows, but the culture of fear created by worldwide attacks against migrants have pushed women to the edges where increased risks of violence and harm exist.
It is clear that the economic crisis and political crisis has worsened in the last years. In all of this, women workers bear the brunt, especially as migrant workers. Migrant women's particular experiences reflect the worst possible conditions of working women under the current system. It is essential that we as migrant and women workers take up action to defend ourselves and our communities against these attacks.
By uplifting the stories of working and migrant women, we are able to better address the root causes facing the majority of women globally, we are better able to envision and fight for a world where women and migrants are free; and those women who the current system has attempted to silence and diminish will be empowered to boldly wage struggles for rights, welfare, equality and fundamental change. Migrant women who come from the working and peasant classes of women all over the world are also a force for change that must be galvanized. We call on our members to follow the militancy of migrant women around the world and boldly wage campaigns against wars of aggression, corruption in puppet governments, predatory policies in imperialist institutions, and more! With the unity of working and migrant women, we can imagine genuine solutions and build an alternative system!
Free the Migrants! Onwards to Workers Liberation!
Counter Rising Fascism with Working and Migrant Women's Unity!
Working and Migrant Women Unite Against Imperialist War!
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