May Day: Demand Immigration Reform! Act to Dismantle Imperialism!

Rally for immigrant women's liberation this May Day, Fri., May 1 with GABNet NY/NJ and Immigrant Communities in Action (ICA). Meet at Union Square at 6 p.m. and look for the GABNet banners. Email contact: gabnetnynj@gmail.com

May Day Statement of the GABNet/Ma-Al: Demand Immigration Reform; Act to Dismantle Imperialism

STOP ALL ICE RAIDS AND DEPORTATIONS!
LEGALIZATION OF ALL WORKING MIGRANTS!
STOP THE TRAFFICKING AND PROSTITUTION OF WOMEN!
GENUINE EQUALITY FOR ALL!
A WOMAN’S PLACE IS AT THE HEAD OF THE STRUGGLE FOR THE LIBERATION OF HUMANITY!

On this year’s International Workers’ Day GABNet of the Mariposa Alliance calls on all women to reaffirm their commitment to women’s liberation. March against imperialism and women’s exploitation; march for workers and immigrant rights!

The call for a Comprehensive Immigration Reform must be made in conjunction with steadfast resistance to the globalization policies and practices by US-led imperialism, and an equally steadfast support for people’s movements in the much-imposed upon continents of Asia, Africa and Latin America.

May First being International Labor Day, we must recognize the role that imperialism plays in the burgeoning of migration the world over. GABNet of the Mariposa Alliance understands that while comprehensive immigration reform may well solve certain basic issues afflicting our transnational communities here, the root cause of migration is US-led imperialism which has virtually made our home countries economically uninhabitable.

Women the world over have suffered exponentially under imperialist globalization, which exacerbates the patriarchal view that they are a disposable segment of the national population. Women are driven to acute poverty by the destruction of their traditional livelihood as multinational conglomerates take over national resources and re-organizes national economies into profit-generating machinery for their own benefit. Women are transformed into cheap labor and sex commodity, as witness in the export processing zones of the world and in the global sex trade. As if this injury is not sufficient, imperialist culture insults women by pandering the idea that women have value only in terms of how their sexuality can become a source of cash and profit. Women are being asked to ignore the history of prostitution as originating in slavery. Truly, imperialism exacerbates patriarchal values, disguising the objectification of women as “choice” and “agency.”

GABNet honors all women -- migrant, transnational and citizens -- for the nobility of their sacrifice to enable their families, communities and nations to survive. At this time when the financial system’s collapse reveals how greed and selfishness are rewarded the most, women continue to be expected to be selfless and generous, to the extent of suspending their own lives to become workhorses for nations ravaged by imperialism.

Women in developing countries across the world have long been the engine of development and growth, taking risks and working impossibly hard to provide for their families. Every day, approximately 3000 Filipinas leave their homes and children to enter precarious situations that can only be described as modern-day slavery. Sadly, from Nepal to Senegal, from Iraq to Palestine, our sisters have become a symbol of what imperialism means to women: sexual slavery, relentless exploitation, violence, and death.

The global economic crisis is devastating the lives of women workers and their families. In Asia and Latin America, women working in export manufacturing industries, like clothes and electronics, are often first to be laid off, frequently without pay or compensation. In the Philippines, sex traffickers prey on women who have been laid off from factory jobs, asking them if they want to go and work abroad. Over one million women and children are trafficked internationally every year, becoming victims of sexual exploitation, labor exploitation and abuse.

There is a direct line between the transformation of women into private property in 4500 B.C. and their continuing oppression and exploitation in the 21st century. Time to put a stop to this! Lay down the New Women’s Agenda! Equality for all in all spheres of human life!

Release date: April 21, 2009. Contact: Jollene Levid, Gabnet Secretary-General, secgen@gabnet.org, Tel: 323-356-4748