WHAT IS THE INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S STRIKE?
● The first Global Women’s Strike (coordinated by the Wages for Housework Campaign – WFH) was called for 8 March 2000, inspired by the 1975 Iceland women’s Day Off and a strike call by women in Ireland ● In 2016 women in Poland stopped work against anti-abortion laws ● In 2017 they joined with the movement against femicide in Argentina, and coordinated an international strike with women in 50+ countries ● In 2018, 6m women in Spain went on strike ● The strikes highlighted unwaged caring work, pay discrimination, rape and domestic violence, climate change …
WHY THE HIGH COURT?
● Many injustices are fought out in these courts – destitution, detention, deportation, benefit cuts, sexism, racism and other discrimination, criminalisation, pollution, the state taking children from their mothers …
● Since the 1970s, WFH has defended mums threatened with losing their kids because they were poor, fleeing domestic violence, lesbian or sex workers.
● Children from poor areas are 10 times more likely to be taken; thousands are forcibly adopted each year. Mothers who are single, of colour, immigrant, disabled, victims of domestic violence are targeted.
● Benefit cuts and sanctions (including Universal Credit), and starvation wages hit women and children hardest – 5m children live in poverty; single mother families are 85% of those affected by the benefit cap.
● Calling poverty ‘neglect’ is one excuse to split up families – love, caring work, even breastfeeding, are dismissed. Families are denied their legal right to resources but millions are spent on placing children with strangers.
● For two years Support not Separation (SnS) has picketed the family court. They will join us to demand a living wage for mothers and other carers.
● We stand against the hostile environment, the destruction of life, the threat to our planet caused by corporate greed, wars, arms sales …
BRING YOUR CASE IN DEFENCE OF OUR KIDS, OUR RELATIONSHIPS, OUR COMMUNITIES, OUR PLANET … WE ARE ALL UNDER ATTACK
Join us for a walking/rolling picket, speak-out, breastfeeding sit-in … bring your own demands from your campaigning … wear a gilet jaune (hi-viz vest) … bring pots and pans to be heard! Women and non-binary people welcome. Men supporters, please contact payday@paydaynet.org
Global Women’s Strike gws@globalwomenstrike.net 020 7482 2496