International Women’s Day Speech After the Protest on March 9th in Southport
Read out after our Protest for Palestine on March 9th.
Yesterday was International Women's Day. Usually March 8, is a major public holiday in Palestine, when families put on their finest clothes and flock to hotels and restaurants to celebrate their mothers, daughters and sisters.
But Women's Day this year for women like Um Zaki?
At a tent in Rafah where Um said she was boiling porridge on an open flame to stave off the hunger of her six children, the holiday passed as a cruel joke.
"Now, all our days look the same. The days of feasts, happy occasions, nice food, laughter and hope, are all gone because of the war,"
she told Reuters by phone.
"What is Women's Day? We are deprived of the minimal rights, we are deprived of living. Every day women die by Israeli bombs."
Above words from Reuters.
9,000+ women have been reportedly killed by Israeli forces in Gaza to date
3,000+ women may have become widows
19,000+ women have been injured
Source - unwomen.org
Women like, Sawsan al-Zein, 50, injured and grieving.
“At the hospital, they told me that my eye was seriously injured, and it was removed immediately. I have one eye now. My hand was injured too, and I cannot move it.”
One of her daughters and her son-in-law were killed in the bombing.
Source aljazeera.com
Women like Anwar Abdul Nabi.
This week Anwar perched on the edge of a bed at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza. Her eyes were sunken with grief.
This young mother tenderly held the fingers of her daughter, Mila. Her beautiful 3-year-old girl had died of starvation.
Source edition.cnn.com
37 mothers are killed every day in Gaza
155,000 women in Gaza are pregnant or breastfeeding,
with 5,500 expected to deliver in the next month
Source - unwomen.org
Women like Marah al – Qayed, age 19.
Before the war, Marah says, she was like other girls, taking care of herself.
“I brushed my teeth, groomed myself, listened to music, went to university and learned photography. Now all my dreams have vanished.”
Source aljazeera.com
Thank you for standing here today in solidarity with Gaza. We will be back here in two weeks - 23rd March, same time, same place. But till then….
let us work for a better future where women in Gaza can live with dignity, peace, hope and security.
We must make sure their voices are heard, and call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire now!
Sources;
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/no-womens-day-gaza-say-mothers-hungry-children-2024-03-08/
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/3/8/a-suffering-i-would-not-wish-on-any-woman-women-of-gaza
