On February the 20th of 2011 many migrant and italian women met in Bologna in order to discuss how to conquer their visibility during the strike and the demonstrations that will take place on March the 1st, and beyond. Last year many women got on strike and went on the streets, but not so many women as those who could have, and above all who would have. To get on strike, to determine their presence, to make their voice heard, is a double challenge for women, both migrant and italian.
Women absence is determined by the double job they are forced to: care
and domestic labour (waged or not) and the exploitation on working
places, which affects mainly migrant women.
This situation is the product of a patriarchal system (that has no
culture, no nation, no religion, insofar as it is universal) which is
expressed by the everyday attack to the domestic workers, the husbands'
wives, the isolated workers, and acts in many ways.
In Italy, the Bossi-Fini Law is an instrument which affirms, in new and
violent ways, the language of patriarchy. This law affects migrant women
twice: on the one hand, through the link between the labour contract
and the residence permit, which makes women workers available to
blackmails both in factories and in the houses, so that they risk to
become illegal, to be detained in Identification and Expulsion Centers,
to be expelled. On the other hand, the Bossi-Fini law enforces the
domestic patriarchy because those women who are in Italy for a family
reunion are legally dependant on their husband's residence permit, so
that it is difficult or impossible for them - also without concrete
supports - to get free from the domestic subordination and violence of
their husbands - which affects also many italian women.
Moreover, the Bossi-Fini law reproduces on a transnational scale the
sexual division of reproductive labour. Domestic and care work is always
a "women affair", both for migrant and italian women, even though some
of them succeeded to free themselves from this «domestic destiny» by
paying another woman. Till migrant women are recognized only as
«characters» (wives, prostitutes who can free themselves only if they
accept to be regarded as victims, care and domestic workers upon whose
labour the private welfare is administered) the freedom of every woman
will be under attack.
For these reasons, we believe that today it is necessary to conquer
women's, and above all migrant women's, voice and visibility. Because
women's migrations challenge the social and patriarchal structures of
original and arrival countries. From this power, and beyond material
difficulties, we must make together a step toward a political presence. A
presence which allow us to take back our voice!
In Bologna it was clear that we, migrant and italian women, are not
available anymore to accept exploitation and subordination, being they
justified by States, cultures, traditions, or religions. We are not
available anymore to accept a neutral antiracism, or the politically
correct language of multiculturalism, which legitimate the assaults
against women within families and communities. To criticize this reality
does not mean to make a racist crusade, or to attack indiscriminately
all migrant communities. This means to criticize patriarchal practices
enacted both by italian and migrant men. This means to reaffirm a
struggle for women's freedom, both migrant and italian.
That is why we call our exploitation and subordination (those imposed by
the Bossi-Fini law, those told as "tradition") with their true and
proper name: patriarchy.
We therefore propose to women, within and without migrant and antiracist
movement, and to those who are taking the streets in order to affirm
their own freedom against the power exercised over their bodies, to
affirm their visibility together with migrant women, first of all during
the demonstrations that will take place during March the 1st.
But we also propose to start up with a project of local and national
assemblies in order to affirm, also beyond the 1st of March, the voice
and the presence of women, with migrant women. Because their absence
from the streets is a defeaning silence. Because the visibility which
women are going to take back will be blinding.
Le Donne del Coordinamento Migranti Bologna e Provincia
Associazione Todo Cambia, Milano
Associazione Trama di Terre, Imola
Rete Intrecci: Associazione Donne in Cammino per la Famiglia
Forlì-Cesena; Associazione
Il Ventaglio, Bologna
Associazione ANNASSIM, Bologna
Associazione Che la Festa continui, Casalecchio (Bo)
Associazione Donne del Mondo, Forlì-Cesena
Associazione UDI, Modena
Ass. Differenza Maternità
Modena, Ass. Donne in nero
Ass Vagabonde, Parma
Info and subscriptions: migranda2011 (at) gmail.com
more: http://www.primomarzo2011.it/
http://no-racism.net/thema/126/
Germany??
France: www.la-journee-sans-immigres.org