Women of Color Convene International Women’s Day March & Rally For Collective Vision Of Women’s Liberation

For Immediate Release
Cristina Awadalla & Kyrie Salazar, AF3IRM Los Angeles
213-880-9247
[email protected]

LOS ANGELES — On Sunday, March 6th, 2016 at 12 noon, AF3IRM Los Angeles will convene women and allies to take over the streets of downtown LA in recognition of International Women’s Day. Thousands of justice-seeking people across the gender spectrum are expected to converge on the streets to demand an end to all forms of violence against women, an end to the genocide of womankind, as well as to put forward our collective vision of liberation.

Last year, over 70 organizations endorsed the march with over 2,000 people in attendance. This year, the march will continue to be led by women-identified, transnational feminists of color to highlight the ways in which women’s lives are either outright or tacitly being obliterated. These include: police brutality/occupation, trans women’s rights, poverty, reproductive justice and the attack on abortion rights, Islamophobia and state violence, the criminalization of im/migrants, gentrification, climate change, the missing, murdered and trafficked women, femicide, and other issues that transnational women of color struggle with daily.

We continue the fight against the genocide faced by women-identifying peoples because women continue to endure intersecting systems of oppression like heteropatriarchy, racism, transmisogyny, capitalism, and imperialism. Right here in the United States, there are over 64,000 Black women missing and trans-women live in fear as they are widely targeted with violence. There are at least 1,200 missing and murdered First Nations women in Canada. El Salvador, Jamaica, and Guatemala are the leading countries with the highest rates of femicide. In the Philippines one in five women between the ages of 15 and 49 has experienced some sort of physical violence since the age of 15. Globally, women are 14 times more likely to die in climate-change related disasters. Women of the world are half the population and workforce, yet labor two-thirds of all working hours and own less than 1% of property. These numbers are telling of women’s oppression across borders; the personal is political and vice versa.

The International Women’s Day March seeks to mobilize our communities and strengthen this transformative movement for genuine women’s liberation. AF3IRM facilitated a conversation with collaborating endorsers around what genuine women’s liberation looks like and on March 6th, the streets of Los Angeles will be filled with our voices, our songs, and our bodies of resistance and our collective vision of the future. With contingents forming around different issues, there is a place for everyone to connect into this march.

[Press Release in Spanish: http://www.af3irm.org/af3irm/2016/02/mujeres-transnacionales-convocan-marcha-y-mitin-para-declarar-una-vision-colectiva-de-la-liberacion-de-la-mujer-por-el-dia-internacional-de-la-mujer/]

iwdla2016-h2iwdla2016-h2-esp WHAT: International Women’s Day March and Rally
WHEN: Sunday, March 6, 2016
TIME: 12:00 noon
WHERE: Los Angeles Police Department Headquarters, 100 W. 1st Street, Los Angeles 90012 (Between Main and Springs Sts)
CONTACT: [email protected]

Leading up to and on the day of the march, follow hashtag #IWDLA2016, as well as AF3IRM accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

AF3IRM is a transnational feminist, anti-imperialist organization with chapters across the country. Our work has focused on issues of trafficking, migration, and militarism through direct action, advocacy, and education for over twenty-five years. For more info, visit www.AF3IRM.org.

One of the media sponsors includes Feminist Magazine on KPFK. This march is endorsed by the following organizations (as of February 8, 2016):

Alliance-Philippines; American Muslims for Palestine; Amigas Who Run; Anti-Mall: people b4 profit; Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance Los Angeles (APALA LA); Bikesanas del Valle; California Immigrant Youth Justice Alliance (CIYJA); Community Education for Social Action (CESA); Corazon Del Pueblo; Feminist Magazine KPFK Radio; Girasoles en Marcha; Heart of Art; HOODsisters; Immigrant Youth Coalition; Justice for My Sister; Kappa Psi Epsilon; KmB Pro-People Youth; Latinas for Reproductive Justice; Los Angeles County HIV, Drug, & Alcohol Task Force; MECHa Roosevelt High School; Mujeres de Maiz; Multicultural Communities for Mobility; Ovarian Psycos; People’s Education Movement; People’s Yoga; Sisters of South LA; Solidarity House of the South/Casa Solidaria del Sur; Student Association of Macro Practice; The Tiyya Foundation; The TransLatin@ Coalition; Ticicalli Yahualli; Tuesday Night Project

 

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