The International Women’s Day is the day we pay homage to the tremendous contributions that women workers have made in the struggle for a just society.

Next year marks 100 years of International Women’s Day. March 8, International Women’s Day or International Working Women’s Day is an important date for working women worldwide.

In 1911, March 8 was first observed as a day to honour the women workers in the factories who  walked out on strike for better working conditions, better hours of work, wages and against any form of exploitation against women workers.

Committee for Asian Women urges all women and women workers this year to take every struggle or action on behalf of women workers in honour of this 100 years of women workers struggles. In this way we recognise the foundation that has been set and the continuing spirit of the struggle by women such as Clara Zetkin and Rosa Luxemburg and  all women leaders since then, around the world. Their struggle is our inspiration.

We are living in a most turbulent period  in the history of women workers. The global capitalist system has escalated economic, food, fuel, water and climate crises to global levels. It has financed wars and conflicts in its greed for more resources. The poor and exploited who shoulder the burden of keeping profits high for the rich are mostly women working living in slave-like conditions without security as human beings. Women workers have steadily lost jobs, livelihoods, land, homes, country, families and lives. Women workers continue to live in hunger and poverty and are unable to feed themselves and their families.

Women workers worldwide will continue to fight against job losses, violence, injustice, unemployment and global economic plunder. As women workers fight for their rights at work, they fight for all human beings to live decently.  As women workers gain victory in job security, decent wages, social protection and health care, they are changing the world for a better future for all. Women in the factories, in the market, in the farms, plantations, in the streets, in the households, in the fields, away from their land, in the war zones- they are the same working women who will forge tomorrow, today- with their hands, with their heart, with their courage.

Working women of the world, we stand together in the strength, of our unity and diversity. Let us march onward for a better and just society.

 On March 8, 2011 Committee for Asian Women will have a gathering in Thailand of women workers from all over Asia in solidarity and struggle.

 Solidarity forever, with working women everywhere!

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