"South Asian women celebrate March 8 by waging battles against gender violence and for economic survival"

Women’s movements in the region have firmly united with other progressive and left movements in the struggle for a better world.

This year’s celebrations of International Women’s Day in South Asia highlighted the challenges which women and their movements face in the region. However, they also emphasized the growing hope in the emerging alliance with left and progressive movements for a just and environmentally secure world.

India

A program at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi to commemorate the day was organized jointly by left and progressive women’s groups in the country, including All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), All India Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA), and others. 

The speakers raised issues related to the growing threats on their livelihoods under the neoliberal economic policies adopted by the right-wing governments. They also raised the issue of growing violence against women in the country under a government which promotes regressive and divisive ideology. The program ended with calls for more united struggles against the threats from religious, patriarchal, casteist and capitalist regimes. 

In Kolkata, hundreds of women marched in the city to demand dignified and equal lives for women, raising slogans against patriarchy and capitalism. [...]

In another part of West Bengal, thousands of women forced the stoppage of work on a coal mine in Deucha Pachami in the tribal-dominated Birbhum district. The women in the area have declared that they do not want the mine which is proposed to be established over 11,000 acres of land. The women claim the mine will not only destroy the local environment by destroying the river and the forest, but also lead to massive displacement. [...]

Bangladesh 

Hundreds of women, mostly from Dhaka University, took to the streets on Sunday to protest against the failure of the interim government led by Nobel peace prize winner Muhammad Yunus to stop the increasing incidents of violence against women in the country. [...] 

Pakistan 

In Pakistan, the organizers of the Aurat March Islamabad (AMI) were prevented from marching to the center of the city by security forces yet again on Saturday. Security forces even took away their announcing system after they tried to march to D-Chowk. [...]