Mujeres de Negro Madrid

Good Treatment, Women’s Right 25th November, International Day against Violence against Women As we commemorate on 25 November the International Day of Elimination of Violence against Women, we want to draw attention once more to the need to work against the violence that is exercised against them for the fact of being women. The violence that we women suffer is a fundamental mechanism of the structural violence in all cultures. Violence is the social response given through all times to dominate, exploit, control, degrade, humiliate… and thus to impose ourselves on others. This treatment is exercised against women in their daily lives; and in war, gender violence increases exponentially. Women, at least half of the population, have been culturally considered inferior, property of men, with the function of serving the interests of the patriarchy, the nation and militarism. Being regarded as ‘inferior’ has implied our exclusion in social spaces – exclusion internalized in both ge...

We Want to Defend What Is Important Humanity is suffering the consequences of the degradation of the earth, contamination of the air, poisoning and scarcity of water, climate change and the exhaustion of natural resources. The planet is losing its topsoil and the earth does not absorb nor can it store rain. The voracity of the Market is insatiable. Our system of life consists in exploiting one another and depleting nature. Cities are increasingly full, while the vacated rural areas attempt to maintain their continuance in the countryside. Wars are multiplying around the world, increasing destruction and poverty. No army defends us from these dangers , and, in addition, consumes the economic resources that should go to those who are suffering the consequences of the suffocation of the planet. Fortunately, alongside this devastating situation, there are people who do not want to dominate nature, rather to feel as a part of it, and with a different outlook towards building life a...

Rebellion Facing the Climate Emergency Currently a series of protests are taking place to draw attention to the climate emergency in which our planet finds itself and to demand concrete actions about it from the authorities. The current model of production and unbridled consumption has increasingly impoverished the most vulnerable on the planet to an untenable level, in addition to exploiting and deteriorating the majority of eco-systems. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) already advised in 2018 that for the global temperature to not rise above more than 1.5ºC we should at the very least reduce by half the greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and have eliminated them altogether by 2050. Any future situation that does not include these reductions means a risk for the survival of human beings and a great part of life on Earth. We want to emphasize the intrinsic relation between militarism and climate change. Aside from facts like, for example, that just the a...

Let's defend the environment. Out with armies and wars World Environment Day was celebrated on 5 June. The world population is increasingly aware of the degree of destruction that our civilization is causing on the Planet. Women in Black against the war Madrid, we want to denounce today the high degree of pollution and destruction of the environment that armies and wars cause in the world. At the origin of most armed conflicts lie objectives related to the exploitation of natural resources. It is impossible to ignore the conquest of water in the case of the occupation of Palestine; or the invasion of Iraq, in which the pollution of rivers was used as a combat weapon; or the strategic control of water resources in Syria, where war has annihilated agriculture. The armies are excessive consumers of fossil fuels. The main objective of most military interventions in recent decades has been to secure the supply and transport of these fuels. It is no coincidence that one of the wo...

Madrid, City Free from Commerce in Weapons Women in Black of Madrid are proud to live in a city that is involved in the promotion of the Culture of Co-existence and Peace and in the defense of human rights. In our recent history, the people of Madrid have demonstrated against the wars that we have been dragged into by the various governments of the nation. The local effort has raised monuments against war, such as the nostrolito of the Plaza de Prosperidad with the slogan “Here rests war” . Even the local institutions have given signs of their involvement through the Compromiso de Madrid de Ciudades de Paz , which turned our town into a Peace Capital in 2017 . Collaboration with the manufacture, exhibiting and commercialization of weapons has no place in a city committed to peace. Commerce in weapons has been branded for its lack of transparency and its contribution to the intensification and chronic repetition of armed conflicts that cause humanitarian crises, including violatio...

European Campaign 5M Embrace of the Peoples For the defense of humanity, for migrant persons and their free movement, for their welcome in Europe and against neo-fascism In Europe, forces of the extreme right and neo-fascism are gaining ground and tossing waves of hatred upon migrants and refugees. The unjust European policies regarding migration close borders and drive tens of thousands of migrants to their death. Many of them suffer all kinds of violence, especially minors, LGBTI persons and women who are victims of human trafficking. They are people who flee from wars fed by weapons manufactured in Europe, from abject poverty caused by commercial and neo-colonist policies, by the plundering of mining and energy resources, by land grabbing and environmental destruction. Those responsible for the economic crisis are the elites who govern Europe and not the persons who are migrants and refugees. It is the European policies that generate unemployment and instability, elimina...

Nicaragua, you will flourish Women in Black, along with thousands of international feminists, are distressed about Nicaragua and join the peaceful revolution that is taking place in that country. The Nicaraguan feminists opposed the re-election of Daniel Ortega and denounced the illegitimacy of his government. It was on that date that they became part of the feminist Articulation of Nicaragua. It was hard to believe that the very some ones who contributed to installing the Sandinista dream would have corrupted those ideals in such a way. It was hard to believe that the much admired guerilla would be a rapist, but the feminists had the courage to support the denouncement of his stepdaughter Zoila America Narvaez. However, neither the abuse nor corruption has been sufficient to remove the guerilla leader from the government. The hero myth has remained alive in the imagination of the country for a long time. The violence exercised on the people since 18 April, more than 300 dead an...

This coming 8 March women will go on strike, the second Feminist Strike. It is not just a work-related strike but also includes, consumption, caregivers, education and social participation, a strike that aspires to influence all vital spaces to symbolically show that if we stop, the world stops. To those who would return us to the caverns of the patriarchy, we say not one step back. The road leading to equality has not yet ended. There is much more to do and we continue forward. Because the rights of women have repercussions in the entire society, we will not step back, not even one inch. A Call to the Feminist Strike Because: ♀ We want a society without violence or fear. ♀ We demand dignity of life for women: without mistreatment, harassments, humiliation, inhumane treatment or psychological violence. ♀ The body of woman is not a battlefield. We must end rape as a weapon of war once and for all. ♀ Women should be recognized as protagonists in social and political li...

30 January: School Day of Nonviolence, in memory of Ghandi The School Day of Nonviolence is commemorated on 30 January in memory of Ghandi and the values he represents. From our feminist, anti-militarist and nonviolent approach, we are convinced that one must work for peace and nonviolence every day of the year. We believe that war is not innate to the human being, rather a cultural response developed and fed by the powers that be. Being a learned response, we must make ourselves aware of our power and opportunity to unlearn it, to not use war to resolve problems. One lesson is to internalize the fact that peace must be real in the entire planet. It doesn’t do any good to live in a country where there is peace while contemplating wars in areas that are more or less distant. It must be taught in schools to think about how everything is related in this world and every war affects the survival of the planet. That it’s not enough to be against violence and war and that in the...