The International Women’s Day
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 8th March 2014, Nicosia
On the occasion of 8th March, International Women’s Day, AKEL addresses a warm greeting to all the women of Cyprus, Greek Cypriot, Turkish Cypriot, Masonite, Armenian and Latin. We address a warm greeting to every woman, working woman, unemployed, mother, young woman, farmer, intellectual and pensioner. We also address a greeting to the thousands of immigrant women living in Cyprus.
The struggle for equality is still continues to be timely. Besides, the real meaning of 8th March is to be find in the struggle for social and labour rights, for the equality of the two sexes, for peace and social justice; for the eradication of every form of oppression and discrimination women face today at work, in education, with regards women’s participation in political and social life.
The Peoples Movement of the Left in Cyprus has never ceased fighting for women, together with them, until the eradication of every form of discrimination and equality are achieved that will provide women with the position they truly deserve in society.
The prevailing conditions in Cypriot society have exacerbated socio-economic problems, as a result of the Anastasiades-Eurogroup decisions last March which have destroyed the Cyprus economy and also due to the socially unjust and dead-end Memoranda policies of the government and the Troika; policies that are plunging labour relations further to the past, dismantling the welfare state, privatising the social welfare services and liberalising working hours in shops. In these conditions, women workers are paying a double price. Unemployment and poverty are disproportionately harming women since they suffer from double exploitation and oppression, both as women workers and women. At the same time, women’s economic dependence, in combination with the on-going social deprivation, is leading to an outbreak of negative phenomena such as violence against women.
As AKEL, we pledge that we shall stand on the side of women and will support the women’s movement and its demands, waging the struggle against the abolition of fundamental labour rights which the Anastasiades government’s insistence on the Memorandum is promoting. We shall fight for the defence of the welfare state and the protection of the social pension which are being targeted by the government and the Troika. We shall assert the implementation of measures that will exit the country from the Memorandum vicious circle and that will lead to growth and the safeguarding of jobs for women and men. We shall wage the battle to back the National Mechanism for Women’s Rights and mainly for the programmes and mechanisms promoting gender equality, the implementation of the Charter for gender equality in Local Self-Government and the acceleration of the implementation of the National Strategy to tackle cancer.
On the occasion of International Woman’s Day, AKEL has decided that instead of distributing red carnations it will allocate 1,000 Euros for the centre hosting abused and battered women.
