AKEL on International Women’s Day

 

We continue the struggle until gender equality becomes a reality

8 March 2022, AKEL C.C. Press Office, Nicosia

International Women’s Day 8th March is an opportunity to make an appraisal of the collective struggles waged by women all over the world and in Cyprus, for rights and gains that a century ago seemed utopian and were achieved through these struggles.

With the valuable legacy of the struggles carried out by pioneering women, with the legacy of the significant steps of progress that they sealed with their personal and collective demands, we have a duty to preserve what has been won through struggle and to continue this struggle so that gender equality and women’s empowerment become a reality.

We still have a long way to go. The women of our country and throughout the world continue to suffer multiple forms of inequality, discrimination, oppression and violence. Working women, unemployed women, mothers, young women, retired women, refugees, trapped women, single parents and immigrant women, remain vulnerable to the pathogenesis of a society in which stereotypical perceptions and patriarchal structures continue to be dominant.

AKEL considers that the struggle for gender equality is not a confrontation between men and women, but instead a struggle against the socio-economic system which is based on the widening and perpetuation of inequalities and the outdated concepts that feed them. In our country, the socio-economic policy pursued by the Anastasiades government, which has dismantled the welfare state, deregulated labour relations, ignored the demands for modern policies to combat gender violence and sexist stereotypes – a fact that was unfortunately expressed during the period of the pandemic – has put women and the cause of gender equality in an even more harsh position.

On the occasion of International Women’s Day, AKEL reaffirms that it will continue to be a leading force, both inside and outside Parliament, in the fight for gender equality. AKEL will continue to demand and promote modern radical policies in order to put an end to gender discrimination and for gender to cease to be a criterion for measuring people at the workplace, in domestic family activity and in public life.