#8March – Declaration of the Peasant Women of La Via Campesina Southern and Eastern Africa

Declaration of working women of La Via Campesina and Allies during the two days’ workshop held at MVIWATA Headquarters, Morogoro, Tanzania

We women, representing our fellow working women from the smallholder farmers’ organizations from 10 countries under the umbrella of La Via Campesina, Political parties and Social movements from various African countries including Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, Zambia, South Africa, Mozambique, Ghana and Eswatini.

Our two days meeting aimed to advance our struggles and we have identified the following:

1. Despite the differences we have in terms of cultures, geography and environmental conditions, together we have similar challenges that require our unity and solidarity in addressing it including the right to acquire, own and use land, commercialization of women bodies and social services including education, water, and health; the increasing violence against women and children and the general oppression of the working class, especially working women. This manifest itself in various forms of economic, social, physical and psychological.

• These challenges are systemic and are indicative of the system’s failure to recognize and protect working women and their rights in economic, social, political and cultural spheres.

• The existing women and men relationship are the product of a wide-ranging system of exploitation and oppression whose signs and symptoms manifest themselves in the face of increasing sexual violence especially against women, exploitation of one sex by the other, mistrust between the two sexes. The rising assumption that these two sexes are enemies, the collapse of family values ​​and the disintegration of families with the aim of pursuing employment.

• That oppressive systems, hidden within neo-liberal policies and that use a man as a tool to abuse women through patriarchy that manifests itself through various economic, social, cultural and political relations in our society have continued to affect us and our society as a whole.

• Gender-based violence has long and deep roots rooted in the patriarchal system that has been plagued, created and expanded over the years and so the revolution of that system is the solution to violence against women.

• The solution to these challenges is a systematic change to create equal rights that require strategies built through unity and solidarity of peasant women and men, activists and all friends who support the struggle to overthrow the abusive, oppressive and perpetual system of violence against women.

The congregation is determined and calls for the following;

1. To build unity and solidarity of peasant women at regional, continental and global level by uniting our efforts and those of our friends in ending violence against women and the real liberation movement of peasant women.

• Continue our discussions in determining who are our friend and who are our enemies in the fight against oppressive system and its agents.

• Break the silence and build strong strategies to dismantle the oppressive systems through various means of our communications and struggles.

• Defense of peasant women’s access to and control of land and territory, water and seeds against extractivist ‘development’, regardless of our race, social class and sexuality.

• We denounce all the ongoing wars, conflicts and enforced migration happening all around the world that leads to increased brutality, sufferings of peasant women and militarization of our lives at the benefit of corporate elites.

End Violence Against Women

“Dismantle Social Classes To Build Gender Equality”A

#InternationalWorkingWomenMonth, #8March #LaViaCampesina

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