Mujeres de Negro Madrid

NEITHER DOCILE, SUBMISSIVE NOR SILENT “ For me it is essential to always move forward from the patriarchal culture of war to my feminist culture and vision of peace .” Annelise Ebbe 8 marzo 2019. Plaza de Cibeles, Madrid During the year 2020, we Mujeres de Negro (Women in Black) have expressed our opinion about various current topics that have seemed especially important to us. We want to say farewell to this year by giving a brief review of these topics and focusing on the future with renewed petitions. We want to declare our commitment to Education for Peace , which seems totally relevant today, because we consider it essential to build a just society that will reduce inequalities, that will protect itself and that will offer nonviolent paths to deal with conflicts. It is fundamental for all people to develop these skills and to put these tools into practice, especially the young people, who are our future. The feminist demands of 8 March 2020 came together surrounding ...

25 NOVEMBER, DAY FOR ELIMINATION OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN   Violence against women is increasing during the pandemic One of the greatest scourges suffered by humankind is violence against women. Societies evolve in achieving rights, but the fundamental right, the right to life, is taken away from thousands of women. Assassinations of women continue everywhere on the planet and among all social classes. One in three women in the world suffers violence by men . To eradicate this blight, the United Nations approved the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women on 20 December 1993 and established 25 November as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. In the first article of the declaration, the UN understands violence against women to mean every act of violence based on belonging to the feminine gender that results or could result in harm or physical, sexual or psychological suffering for women, including threats of such acts, coe...

For Peace in the South Caucasus! One of the most militarized places in the world is the border between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the border that surrounds the autonomous region known as Artsakh (for Armenia) or Nagorno Karabaj (for Azerbaijan), where towards the end of September confrontations initiated by Azerbaijan began again. This territory has been in dispute between the two countries for more than 30 years, although its roots go back to early in the 20th century. A majority Armenian enclave is located in Azerbaijani land but it is also on the route for the interests of other states and corporations. The Minsk Group of the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe), in charge of seeking a peaceful solution to the conflict, seems to not exist. The ceasefire attempts promoted by third countries have failed. The truce is broken down. The activists for peace in both countries also demand a non-violent solution to the conflict, which will not be achieved while...

For a Policy of Care “ The first sign of civilization in an ancient culture is a broken and then healed femur because no one can survive alone in the jungle, in nature, long enough for the fracture to heal without another person taking care of him ”. Margaret Mead, anthropologist The COVID-19 pandemic has made manifest our vulnerability because the virus does not observe borders or continents and can affect all people, but the fact is that is does especially attack impoverished social classes that are more fragile and have fewer or no means to take care of and protect themselves. As a society, we have all known what our needs were to resist and succeed, by whom and how we have been cared for without their shying away because of personal risks. We felt the priority for solidarity amongst all in order to emerge from the crisis; we wanted to come out reinforced both personally and as a society and to make protection of the weakest a reality. Care giving, since the very beginnin...

Solidarity is Going Beyond Borders “I can’t breathe” . This desperate shout of George Floyd while he was dying, an asphyxiated victim of police brutality, has generated massive protests in a large part of the world and has brought attention to the racism suffered by many people, a racism that lives on. It is nothing new: People persecuted only for the color of their skin. Violations of human rights experienced by seasonal Moroccan female workers and other migrants who work in the harvest of strawberries and other red berries in Huelva. Seasonal workers who can rent neither housing nor hotel rooms in Lerida because of being of a certain origin. Sexual violence. Difficulties in accessing the legal system, public health and their sexual and reproductive rights. Racist riots. Foreign Internment Centers without measures for protection during the COVID 19 pandemic. Persecutions on our southern border. Aporophobia. Xenophobia. Speeches by the media and public representatives that di...

In Lockdown, Challenge to Our Social Model In these times of confinement, when the pandemic is killing so many people and causing many others to suffer, we reflect beyond our own needs to the health of the planet and all humanity. Facing the sorrow for so many human losses because of the commercialization of care facilities and attention to our elders, we see that a change in our social model is urgent, a change towards policies that put life at the center of its concerns. Many people in our country cannot now – and in the near future will not be able – to cope from day to day because of their precarious employment, lack of housing, increase in unemployment and the impossibility of access to resources of an abusive and exclusionary system. Furthermore, millions of people live in abject poverty or under conditions of war or fleeing from war. Several million move from one country to another for multiple reasons that preclude their living a life with dignity in their homeland...

8 March With Rights, Without Barriers, Feminists Without Borders To commemorate 8th March 2020, the 8M Commission of Madrid calls on the Revuelta Feminista (Feminist Collective Revolt), filling February and March with actions that draw attention to the demands and proposals of the feminist movement. Women in Black of Madrid want to join this Feminist Revolt because we wish for all a life with rights every day of the year. In this context, as a way of breaking through frontiers, we want to highlight the work being developed by groups of women organized all over the world, weaving networks that sustain life, including in situations of war or armed conflict, repression, environmental threats and violations of human rights. For that reason, today we highlight with joy and sisterhood four current mobilizations of women. In Shaheen Bagh and other regions of India, women of all ages have gone out into the streets [demonstrating] against the Citizenship Amendment Act , which they see...

School Day of Nonviolence, 30 January 2020 In 2007 the United Nations declared 30 January, the date of the assassination of Gandhi, International Day of Nonviolence. Women in Black against war want to draw attention to the need to form from an early age, both in schools and in families, education for peace and the nonviolent resolution of conflicts. We understand education for peace as a process that allows us to perceive the world in which we live in a manner that connects events with their causes. We aspire to educate ourselves to be part of a less violent and more just society on the path towards social change, utilizing nonviolent resolution of conflicts as a force for change. In European centers of scholarship the name of Erasmus has become popular through international exchange programs. His work concerning peace, however, is forgotten. Erasmus said: “The most disadvantageous peace is better than the most just war.” Another classic of European education, Francesco de Pe...