Comrades,
I salute you all in the defiant spirit of the Revolutionary Women!
BASIS OF THE EVENT
As stipulated in the CPMK constitution adopted during its second National Congress, workers are at the center of organizing the National Democratic Revolution which was also resolved to be the party’s area of struggle. It is thus essential for the party to be in solidarity with workers nationally, regionally and globally in the plight of liberation through various fronts including and not limited to commemorating the gains and losses made in the struggle for decent living on the already existing marked days, International Working Women’s day not exempted.
As students of Marx, our struggle is class based and that implies we won’t be celebrating International Working Women’s day narrowly as gender issue but as the marginalized gender of the oppressed class. In that regards, we’ll be commemorating revolutionary gains that have been realized by the working women like Rosa Luxemburg who was a revolutionary journalist, Ruth First who engaged in mining works, Muthoni Nyanjiru and many more. These women inspire us a lot especially for standing strong to overcome the repressive conditions of their time.
Additionally, women are not regarded marginalized from abstract but rather from severity of systemic ideological and cultural deception that have since been directed to them such as gender based violence, single parenting, femicide, patriarchal norms and beliefs, reproductive health, slut mentality, sexual harassment, premature marriages, limited political stance, high cost of living, competitive mentality, exploitative working conditions, unemployment, limited freedom of expression among others.
It’s important to note that “workers” in our trajectory is not limited to anybody selling their labor to receive wage compensation in return but also those who participate in production through the invisible unpaid labor; which in most cases are domestic and child care labor.
CALL TO ACTION
The Communist Party Marxist-Kenya through its mass organ the RWL in its convening in Gem, Siaya county demand the implementation of the following remedies for the realization of the emancipation of working women;
1. Women are human beings and should be treated with high level of dignity despite of their class status.
2. Protective reproductive rights/ measures should be public and freely available to Kenyans. Provision of condoms is not enough. FP mechanisms for those who prefer them should be free. More reproductive drugs i.e. anti-fungal infections and STIs should be freely available in the public health care centers.
3. Women should have the liberty to make choices on political, economic and social stance.
4. Popular education should be done through political spaces, education centers, religious gatherings and any social gathering to debunk the idea of women being perceived as property and sexual objects and relate to them in a more human manner.
5. Child care centers should be public unlike they are now privatized and only accessible to women who can afford them. This will ease the lactating mothers the burden of stressing on balancing between childcare and professional work. There should exist policies on regulating childcare work to guarantee the child’s security.
6. Childcare after the nursing stages should be a societal responsibility and not narrowly nuclear family.
7. Balancing of the invisible labor at family structure level. Domestic chores are not women’s duties.
8. Maternity labor rights should include societal psychological, emotional, financial and sociological wellbeing of women in such conditions.
9. Women should be enlightened on the root course of their oppression which is not men but the semi-fascist – semi-capitalist system accompanied by patriarchal norms and belief in the Kenyan set up that have existed since the precolonial days. Women should channel their energy into fighting this system that have regrouped them into hostile camps rather than channeling it to each other and further expounding it to gender war.
10. Social amenities like markets, roads, health care facilities should be readily accessible to offload the burden of having to strain to access basic needs. Basic needs like food shelter and water should be available at household level.
11. Education and employment should be guaranteed to all by the government to give women a more dignified life.
12. The government should lower prices for the basic commodities to be more reasonable and affordable to its citizens. This will probably reduce domestic violence that have greatly affected women.
13. Women should be made equal property (land and production machineries) owners as men.
14. Women with professional qualifications should equally be liable to job opportunities in those professional fields and any attempt to demand compensation for those opportunity through sexual harassment or abuse should be punishable legally.
Party cadres should intensively populate these demands to establish flawless gender relations and reconsolidate the working class effort towards struggling for land, food and freedom away from the destructive gender struggles.
Long live the Workers’ Union!
Long live the Workers’ Party!
Long Live CPM-K!
Long Live Revolutionary Women League!
End!!!!