Global call to women, trans, transvestites, lesbians, migrants, refugees, indigenous, afro-descendant and displaced women, united against the World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Buenos Aires, December 2017
From December 10 to 13, the 11th. World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Meeting will take place in the city of Buenos Aires where measures will be agreed to delve into the “free” trade agenda. The WTO represents the interests of large transnational corporations, not the rights or needs of peoples. Our region has gone through twenty years of “free” trade agreements (FTA) and our peoples and territories have felt the harmful effects of the increasing corporate privileges and deregulation.
These agreements promote competition with an impact on the labor market, as they imply labor flexibility and a threat for SMEs, with consequences such as increased unemployment and precarious work, with an impact mainly on those with weaker integration: women and young people. In addition, the strengthening of the market economy competes with the development of a care economy. The disadvantages of women in the labor market lie in the weakness and absence of mechanisms of social co-responsibility in care, which falls disproportionately on us. And neoliberal policies are blind to these imbalances that the “invisible hand of the market” reinforces.
Among the issues under negotiation in the WTO agenda in December, the ones referred to agriculture, services, intellectual property, government procurement, among others, remain and new ones such as electronic commerce or digital data have been added. Considering this agenda, we ask ourselves how will this affect the lives of women, transvestites, lesbians, migrants, refugees, indigenous, transsexual, Afro-descendant and displaced women. The feminist movement has upheld a critical view of the hegemonic social and economic system denouncing inequality, injustice and exploitation. It is necessary to recover that view and women’s experiences and practices to join the other social movements within the framework of this new offensive of the trade and investment agreements encouraged by the WTO meeting in our region.
Let’s remember the year 2005 when many of us screamed “SAY NO TO FTAA! GET OUT BUSH!” at the National Women’s Meeting in Mar del Plata (Argentina), prior to the Peoples’ Summit. Now it is necessary to redouble our efforts to fuel this new cycle of struggles that will continue next year, as the agreements of December 2017 will be reinforced at the G20 Summit in Argentina in November 2018, under the presidency of Macri. The fight against the WTO is global and we can rebuild a history of mobilizations and articulations of organizations and social networks as well as networks of trade unions, human rights, women, LGBTI, territory, students, policy, peasants and anti-extractivists.
As we think and coordinate ourselves through discussions held by many local, regional and global organizations, we will be building the People’s Summit to be held during the Action Week in December. That Summit is a call for resistance against “free trade” that only creates policies of exploitation and plundering of our peoples and territories.
And within this framework, we call to participate in a Great Assembly of women, trans, transvestites, lesbians, migrants, refugees, indigenous, transsexual, afro-descendant and displaced women, on December 12, where we will be able to feel and think strategies to face the trade liberalization agenda. The fight against the WTO must be not only global but also feminist, because in the debate on popular alternatives, the contributions of ecofeminism, community feminism, feminist economics and good living are key to move forward with projects that build new forms of solidarity, anti-patriarchal and anti-racist relationships among our peoples and individuals.
As feminists, we stand up against the WTO, trade liberalization, economic violence and neoliberalism and we demand more egalitarian gender relationships, economic and ecological justice!
The struggle is global and feminist!
Women, transsexual, transvestites, lesbians, migrants, refugees, indigenous, afro-descendant and displaced women, united against the WTO!
To endorse this call or request more information please contact us at: asambleatrabajadoras@gmail.com
