Women’s Day evokes global call for equality
Some protesters face tear gas, arrest
YORK — From the streets of Manila to the plazas of Santiago, Chile, people around the world marked International Women’s Day on Sunday with calls to end exploitation and increase equality.
But tensions marred some celebrations, with police reportedly using tear gas to break up a demonstration by thousands of women in Turkey and with security forces arresting demonstrators at a rally in Kyrgyzstan.
“In many different ways or forms, women are being exploited and taken advantage of,” Arlene Brosas, the representative of a Filipino advocacy group, said during a rally that drew hundreds of people to the area near the presidential palace. Protesters called for higher pay and job security, and they demanded that President Rodrigo Duterte respect women’s rights.
In Turkey, riot police fired tear gas to disperse thousands of demonstrators who,
in defiance of a government ban, tried to march along Istanbul’s main pedestrian street to mark International Women’s Day, media reports said.
Turkish authorities declared a thoroughfare named Istiklal, near Istanbul’s main Taksim Square, off-limits, and they said the planned march down the avenue was unauthorized. Thousands of demonstrators, most of them women, ignored the order, gathered near Istiklal and tried to break through police barricades to reach it, according to the opposition Cumhuriyet newspaper and other media.
The independent T24 news website said police also fired blanks to disperse the crowd.
Several demonstrators were detained, according to Cumhuriyet.
Turkish authorities have restricted protests in the country in recent years, citing security. Police had set up barricades on all streets leading to Istiklal and closed down the nearest subway stop.
In Pakistan, however, women managed to rally in cities across the country, despite petitions filed in court seeking to stop them. The opposition was stirred in part by controversy over a slogan used in last year’s march: “My Body, My Choice.”
Some conservative groups had threatened to stop this year’s marches by force. But Pakistani officials pledged to protect the marchers. The rallies are notable in a conservative country where women often do not feel safe in public places because of open harassment. The main Islamic political party, Jamaat-e-Islami, organized its own rallies to counter the march.
One of the largest demonstrations occurred in Chile, where thousands flooded the streets of the capital with dancing, music and demands for gender equality and an end to violence against women.
“They kill us, they rape us and nobody does anything,” some chanted.
National police estimated 125,000 took part in the capital and nearly 35,000 in other cities, but organizers said the crowds were far larger. Scattered clashes broke out at points when demonstrators threw rocks at police, who responded with water cannons.
Many protesters demanded that a proposed new constitution strengthen rights for women and thousands wore green scarves in a show of support for activists in neighboring Argentina, which is considering a proposal to legalize elective abortion.
Tens of thousands of women also marched through Paris, inveighing against the “virus of the patriarchy.”
“Enough impunity!” chanted some activists, who focused on France’s unusually high rate of women killed by their husbands. Last year, one woman was killed every two or three days by a current or former partner, and the government is increasing efforts to crack down on domestic violence.
“They should provide resources for shelters for women, victims of violence, real resources, human resources, also prevention programs for violent men,” union activist Julia Parbotin said.
Tens of thousands of women also marched in Madrid and other Spanish cities, despite concern over the spread of the new coronavirus.
Spanish health authorities said they did not put any restrictions on the march, but recommended that anyone with symptoms similar to those of the coronavirus stay home. Authorities said 120,000 people participated in Madrid’s march, down from 350,000 last year.
The detonation of explosives triggered panic at a ceremony in Bamenda, an English-speaking town in the northwest of Cameroon. Suspicions focused on separatists who had vowed to disrupt the events. No one was killed or wounded.
Police in Bishkek, the capital city of Kyrgyzstan, detained about 60 people after a group of unidentified men broke up what authorities called an unauthorized rally.
Demonstrators had gathered in the city’s main square to express support for women’s and children’s rights. But unidentified men barged into the gathering. Police said people from both sides were detained, but news reports said they were primarily women. They were released several hours later, after about 10 had been charged with resisting police, the Akipress news agency reported, citing an attorney.
In Nicaragua, where authorities have banned opposition protests since September 2018, police surrounded and blocked two groups of women at a church and human-rights office who had planned to stage a demonstration.
STRIKE IN MEXICO
On the heels of the rallies, many of Mexico’s 21 million registered female workers are expected to stay home from work or school today to protest gender violence.
After several recent grisly killings, feminists proposed the action to draw attention to Mexico’s attacks on women, and the idea quickly went viral. Federal and local government offices and dozens of universities are granting leave to female employees and students, and some of Mexico’s biggest companies are also backing the action. Walmart has said its 108,000 female employees in Mexico are free to join the oneday strike. Other corporate supporters include Ford, the Grupo Salinas banking and media conglomerate, and Bimbo, the baked-goods giant.
The economic losses in the capital alone could hit $300 million, according to the Mexico City branch of Coparmex, an influential employers’ association.
“This is a way for us to say to the world that Mexican women have value, no matter our age, our place or how we look,” said Minerva Ovando Vilchis, 53, a manager of the civil-registry office in Santa Maria del Monte, a suburb of Mexico City. “The authorities in charge of public security are not doing much to defend us.”
The strike is the latest step in a growing backlash in the hemisphere against abuse of women. Mexicans have joined the #MeToo campaign and embraced the Chilean protest dance “A Rapist in Your Way,” which has been performed by crowds of ordinary women in public plazas throughout Latin America.
“There’s a momentum, built on what movements have done in other parts of the world,” said Edna Jaime, director of the policy think tank Mexico Evalua. “And here, we have reached a worrying level of violence. You can’t hide it anymore.”
Violence of all kinds has escalated in recent years in Mexico. But for women, there is a chilling twist: 25% of Mexico’s female homicide victims are killed in the home, compared with 10% of male victims.
“These data point to a terrible fact: The home is not a safe place for an enormous proportion of women,” the security analyst Alejandro Hope wrote in the daily newspaper El Universal.
There were about 1,000 femicides — girls and women killed because of their gender — in Mexico last year, up 10% from the previous year. Overall, an average of 10 women were killed per day in 2019.
About two-thirds of women 15 and older in Mexico have reported experiencing some kind of violence. Many complain the justice system remains unresponsive.
Millions of Mexican women with precarious employment can’t afford to lose a day’s pay, much less their jobs, and don’t have male partners to take on child care duties for a day.
“I’m a single mother with two girls in my charge — I can’t rest,” Teresa Laguna said while cleaning meat from a bone at the butcher shop where she works. “But strike for us, you who can.”