Here is the document that was read at the massive rally in front of the National Congress this 8M, where the large column of Juntas y a la Izquierda of the MST in the FIT-Unidad (Argentine section of the ISL), stood out for its combativeness and showiness.
8M 2024
We are here again on March 8: International Women Workers’ Day of Struggle. Today is the day of the international feminist strike antipatriarchal, antifascist, antiracist, anticapacitist, anticolonial, anticapitalist, anticlerical, anticisexist, antispeciesist, antibiologicist, plurinational of cis, lesbian, bisexual, transvestite, trans, nonbinary and intersex women. With this strike we vindicate and honor the struggles of the women workers who came before us. With this day of struggle we say that FREEDOM IS OURS AND NOT OF THE MARKETS NOR OF THE GOVERNMENTS.
Our feminisms are internationalist, that is why we repudiate the genocide in Gaza by the state of Israel. We also repudiate the genocide in Haiti, Democratic Republic of Congo and Wallmapu. It is not war: it is GENOCIDE. Free Palestine! Free Haiti! Free Democratic Republic of Congo! Free Wallmapu!
We are in a historic 8M against the far-right government of Javier Milei and Victoria Villarruel. We are facing an authoritarian government that represents the patriarchal reaction, that speaks of a chainsaw to celebrate a systematic plan of looting and hunger and destroying the rights of the working class and the people. Their plan is at the service of the international capitals that come for our common goods and our life, and to be able to do so they need a hungry people, with no jobs, no housing, and no public education and health.
We repudiate the dismantling of the state: the deregulation, privatization and emptying of public policies. We repudiate layoffs!
That is also why this government needs a repressive protocol and specifically attacks feminisms, because we are the ones who protest and take matters into our hands, because we will sustain life at all costs when it is at risk. We say DOWN WITH Patricia Bullrich’s ANTI-PROTEST PROTOCOL!
That is why political violence and the closure of Télam go hand in hand: they intend to silence protests, repress and discipline as the dictatorship did in the most terrible days of this country: we say WE DO NOT FORGET AND WE DO NOT FORGIVE. No to the impunity of the genocides, today more than ever: 30,000 comrades arrested and disappeared are present, today and always!
We strike against the ultra-right, austerity and the IMF, as we have been doing in the streets, in the neighborhood assemblies organized since December 20, in every part of the country. Our organization was fundamental to overthrow the Omnibus Law, which was defeated in the streets.
While we are meeting on this stage in front of the Congress, Milei is meeting with governors to deepen his austerity plan with the May Pact, to hand over our land and our conquests. We say NO! WE DEFEND OUR SOVEREIGNTY, WE WILL DEFEND OUR WATER, OUR LAND, OUR FORESTS AND SEEDS!
We defend our income and wages, and our right to protest and organize.
We claim our unity as workers, our unity as a feminist movement in the struggles and in the streets. Today we feminisms express ourselves for the need to give continuity to the great days of struggle of December 20, the mobilization of December 27 and the strike of January 24, mobilizations against the Omnibus Law in front of Congress, with the call for a new national strike that unifies all the struggles until the defeat of Javier MIlei’s entire plan.
- WE ARE HERE AGAINST HUNGER AND AUSTERITY
Because Milei is a starver and through hunger he intends to dehumanize us. Every article of the DNU, every administrative decision is an adjustment of our lives at the service of the IMF, or a measure destined to the enrichment of the big national and international financial economic interests.
The destruction of wages with a miserable minimum wage hits workers. The deregulation of food price protection policies affects the entire working class. The delivery of food in the neighborhoods has been interrupted. There is no food in the soup kitchens nor salary recognition for the community cooks who work 8 hours a day to feed 10 million people. Children are malnourished or malnourished and sick. In three months of this government, poverty has deepened, reaching 60%. We go into debt to be able to eat, to buy medicine, to study, to pay for transportation and to pay rent. Austerity is set against culture and its workers. Healthcare and medicines are increasing, public health is overwhelmed, essential health services such as oncological care and HIV medication are interrupted.
Because of this:
-We demand the salary recognition of community workers who transform goods into food every day.
-We say NO to the closure of soup kitchens.
-We demand an emergency food law and sovereignty.
-We demand social, food and integral health protection for women, lesbians, bisexuals, transvestites, trans, non-binary and intersex.
-We demand more and better income for those who receive social programs.
-We denounce the cuts and stigmatization of those who access the Potenciar Trabajo Program.
-We denounce the impoverishment of retirees with unworthy incomes.
-We denounce that they want to take away the moratorium retirement that allowed housewives and domestic workers to access the right to retire. We demand the right to the moratorium without the purchase of years at the workers’ expense.
-We say NO to the pension reform and the extension of the retirement age.
We defend the free, public, inclusive, anti-racist, anti-patriarchal, anti-biological and anti-training national universities and we defend the scientific-technological system that today is in a critical situation. We demand the educational ticket and funding for training and the guarantee of ESI. We oppose the voucher policy and the removal of the FONID!
-We repudiate the tariffs and we say that we do not want to be left behind! There is money but it is taken by the IMF and the corporations.
2. WE ARE HERE FOR THE RIGHT TO LEGAL, SAFE AND FREE ABORTION
We repudiate all the bills that pretend to make us go backwards in sexual and (non)reproductive rights. We denounce the government policy that denies gender inequalities while strengthening the Catholic and Evangelical Churches, institutions which have been historical enemies of our sexual freedoms. An example of this is the constant obstruction of our (non-)reproductive rights and the torture of girls who undergo forced pregnancies, forcing them to gestate and give birth, and the cover-up of priests and pastors who abuse children and adolescents. Now the government also chooses churches as intermediaries against the organizations that support the soup kitchens. Once again we say: Churches and State, separate issues.
We are alert and organized to actively resist all attempts to obstruct the right to abortion, we demand its effective, universal and democratic fulfillment. The right to abortion is law! We say once more:
Sex Education to decide,
Contraceptives not to abort,
Legal Abortion in order not to die.
Therefore:
-We denounce any impediment and refusal to comply with the laws achieved by our historical struggles, which violate us and act against our autonomy and sovereignty of our bodies.
-We demand that access to and full implementation of Law 27.610 on the Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy be guaranteed throughout the national territory, the provision of contraceptive methods and post-abortion care for all pregnant women.
-We want Integral Sexual Education that is non-biological, non-binary and accessible at all educational levels, secular and feminist.
-We demand access to misoprostol and mifepristone free of charge, the continued production of both drugs, the incorporation of the practice of MVA as a method for abortion and improve access to the right of all.
-We repudiate the demand to express if any person has had an abortion in Tucumán.
3. WE ARE HERE FOR WORK AND AGAINST DISMISSALS.
The layoffs of state workers are fundamental to Milei’s global starvation plan: each laid-off worker represents fewer rights for all. We are well aware of the smear campaign against state working positions, it has been going on since the 90s. History shows that we need more quality public policies, not less. Every time a program is closed, rights are no longer guaranteed. Layoffs begin in the most precarious sectors and there is both a feminization of precariousness and a feminization of layoffs. Inflation and the fall in consumption also translate into massive layoffs in the private sector.
We were part of the strikes already carried out in different sectors and we defend the mobilization in unity of employed and unemployed workers.
And for that reason:
-We demand an increase in salaries, pensions and social assistance programs now!
-We say no to the cessation of bargaining!
-We demand: No to the closure of INADI! The only agency to fight against racism, xenophobia and racial discrimination, related forms of intolerance and hate speech!
-We demand Afro Labor Quota
– No to the closure of INAI (National Institute of Indigenous Affairs) in charge of enforcing Law 26160, which declares the emergency in matters of possession and ownership of lands of the pre-existing communities to the Nation State!
– No to the closing of TELAM! No to the closing of INCAA! No to the privatization of Banco Nación! No to the layoffs in GPS-Aerolíneas Argentinas and no to the Privatization of Aerolíneas Argentinas!
-We repudiate the massive and unjustified layoffs in the National State, provincial and municipal states.
-We denounce the dismissals in the National Agency of Disability, which expresses the violence of this government. Enough of outrages against people with disabilities!
-We demand the effective fulfillment of the disability labor quota. 85% of people with disabilities are unemployed.
-We demand the Universal Minimum Wage for workers of the popular economy.
-We demand salaries in line with the basic food basket and adjusted for inflation for teachers and we repudiate that the government intends to declare it an essential service to prevent the right to strike. Education is a right and not a service.
-Quota with parity, historical reparation and redistribution for the TTNB collective, survivors of the dictatorship and violence in democracy. We demand Integral Trans Law and Antidiscrimination Law.
-We demand a 100% salary increase for domestic workers.
-We demand dignified conditions for textile workers. We demand the expropriation of the Luis Viale workshop to turn it into a site of memory, 18 years of impunity will be celebrated on March 30.
-We repudiate Milei’s attack on the unions and we defend the organization of the workers for the struggle.
4. WE ARE HERE TO SAY DOWN WITH THE DNU: NO MORE EXTRACTIVISM AGAINST BODIES AND TERRITORIES!
We demand the repeal of the DNU, which is the legal framework for the plundering of bodies and territories. The DNU has to fall and cannot be a bargaining chip to negotiate with the governors the destruction and surrender of our common goods. Today this government vindicates the genocidal desert campaign, while handing over the Malvinas Islands. Housing is in danger today: the deregulation of the rent law through the DNU deepens the issue of those who rent who cannot afford a roof over their head, exacerbating gender inequalities and violence.
For this reason:
-We demand the right to access to decent housing, with terms that allow us to have housing stability and develop ties with the neighborhood where we live, generating networks and community, which is part of the feminist struggle.
-No to the repeal of laws that protect our territory:
Forest Law, Glacier Law, Land Law, Seed Law, Fire Law and for the Wetlands Law.
-No to the foreign ownership of land by corporations!
-We vindicate the political identity of the Mapuche people who today denounce that without water and land there is no life and for this reason they are persecuted and criminalized!
-For the Mapuche comrades unjustly deprived of their freedom and for the right to recover their ancestral lands. Enough persecution of the Mapuche people.
5. WE ARE HERE TO SAY DOWN WITH PATRICIA BULLRICH’S REPRESSIVE PROTOCOL. STOP INSTITUTIONAL VIOLENCE!
We denounce the fact that Judge Gustavo Pieretti has rejected the habeas corpus presented to stop it and that the Chamber has rejected the amparo of Judge Sebastian Casanello. Against Jorge Macri’s protocol that criminalizes homeless people and violates the Mental Health Law. “Crazy” people should be free, not locked down. Less budgets to repress us, more budgets for Mental Health.
With this justice there is no guarantee of freedom! Comrades burned by gas, shot in front of the Congress and in other parts of the country during the debate for the Omnibus Law: this is the balance that they seek and celebrate to motivate the disorganization of the protest and the disciplining of our militancy.
We say NO to this patriarchal and capitalist, xenophobic, transphobic, lesbophobic, and repressive justice. For this reason:
-We say enough of institutional violence towards sex workers and people in situation of prostitution!
-No more threats, extortion and discrimination against migrants. Migration is a right. No to the return of DNU 70/2017 that seeks our expulsion. Pichetto must apologize for his xenophobic sayings.
-Enough of banning non-binary language and gender perspective in the National State. We refuse to be the scapegoat of this government.
-We vindicate the struggles for Human Rights, we repudiate the closure of the TV program of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo.
-We demand that accessibility be guaranteed in all aspects of life; that is: in the media, in public organizations, in hospitals, in the justice system, in police stations, in schools, etc. Argentine Sign Language everywhere!
-We continue to demand justice for the crime of the girls Lilian Mariana and María Carmen Villalba. We demand Lichita’s found alive! Acquittal and freedom for Laura Villalba. Freedom for Carmen Villalba (with sentence served). The State of Paraguay is responsible.
-We say no to the criminalization of social protest. Annulment of the causes and dismissal of all the comrades for fighting, from Jujuy to Santa Cruz. Down with the condemnation of César Arakaki and Daniel Ruiz for fighting against the theft of pensions under Macri’s government.
-Restitution now of the 27 students of the National University of Córdoba.
-We demand the freedom of Milagro Sala and Cristian Díaz and all those imprisoned for fighting.
6. WE ARE HERE AGAINST MALE CHAUVINIST VIOLENCE
We celebrate this movement that was generated in the now plurinational Meetings of women, bisexuals, lesbians, transvestites, trans, non-binary and intersex, which became massive with the cry Ni Una Menos in 2015 and the struggle of the Green Tide and became strong with the international feminist strikes since 2017.
Today we face, nine years later, a real emergency in gender violence. There are more than 70 femicides so far this year. The upsurge of institutional violence and the hunger and dehumanization of certain groups of people because of their skin color, gender or poverty are a breeding ground for the upsurge of all types of gender violence, the most extreme being femicides, transvesticides, transfemicides, transhomicides, transhomicides and political violence.
Furthermore, the financial deregulation sought by Milei guarantees the advance of organized crime, human trafficking and drug trafficking. State complicity with criminal networks is reflected in the lack of training with a gender perspective and the attack on the Micaela Law, the emptying of assistance offices, the massive archiving of court cases and the null resources for the reparation of survivors and their families.
We say ENOUGH because:
-Stop the cover-up of sexual abuse of children and adolescents: we say sexual abuse never again; for children and adolescents free of violence. Against the persecution and criminalization of mothers and protective references. No more impunity, no to the statute of limitations for crimes of sexual abuse. No more sexual abuse, children and adolescents are not to be touched. Sexual abuse is torture. No more forced re-involvement. Girls, not mothers. Children and adolescents do not lie. We believe you.
-We demand Justice for Zoe, murdered on November 11, president of the Gondolín, transvestite of the Casa Rosada. It was transvesticide!
-Justice for Sofi Fernandez, murdered on April 8 in the police station 5 of Derqui.
-Justice for Claudia Tupa Lotore, Luna Ortiz, Cecilia Basaldua, Paula Martínez, Lucía Perez and for all of them. Ni una Menos. We want us alive!
-We demand: Immediate resolution of Pierina Nocetti, unjustly accused for a graffiti in the Pride march of Necochea that reads: Where is Tehuel?
-We demand: Tehuel de la Torre’s appearance alive! Last year we managed to get the date of the oral trial moved forward to August 2024. It was originally set for 2027. Enough of cover-up and impunity.
-We demand the acquittal of Zaida Mamani.
-We demand effective access to justice and a judicial reform with a gender and class perspective.
-We pronounce ourselves against patriarchal, cissexist, xenophobic, and empowering institutional violence.
-We demand a budget to combat gender violence, not for the IMF. Ni Una Menos. No more femicides.
-We denounce that the closure of the Ministry of Women, Genders and LGBT community was an excuse to advance a reactionary agenda against our rights.
-Justice for the girls and boys of the municipal kindergarten 907 of Merlo. We demand an investigation of the trafficking and pornography networks that operate with political complicity in the territory. We denounce the lack of assistance for more than 20 affected families, the state is responsible. Children do not lie, pedophiles do!
-Justice for Maria Saucedo, survivor of human trafficking. We denounce repeated institutional violence by the Prosecutor and support the request for recusal. We demand a trial with a gender perspective and an exemplary sentence to her pimp.
-Justice for Sandra Cabrera, sex worker murdered by the police of Rosario for denouncing human trafficking and police complicity, whose femicide remains unpunished.
-No more mutilations and violence against intersex bodies. We demand Memory, Truth, Justice and Intersex Reparation.
We celebrate, once again, the unity of the feminist movement and this historic day of struggle.
Here we are in this square and all over the country on alert and mobilized.
We say we will take NO STEP BACK.
We are not afraid of Milei.
We were a tide, and we will be a tsunami!!!!