This will be the next feminist demonstration of 8M in Madrid

The 8M Commission of the feminist movement in Madrid has agreed this Sunday the call for the next Women's Day demonstration. The march on March 8 will travel through the center of the capital, from Atocha to Plaza de Colón, starting at 7:00 p.m., under the slogan 'Rights for all, every day. Here we are feminists'.

This demonstration, whose itinerary has been confirmed this Sunday after the celebration of the fourth assembly of 2022, will be held after the Government Delegation in Madrid denied authorization for all concentrations for March 8, 2021 due to the health situation, in what the 8M Commission considers "a violation of the right to protest" and "an attempt to criminalize the feminist movement", which has been brought before the Constitutional Court. As they point out in a statement, this Court has admitted three of the five appeals filed, which is "a victory in itself."

The organizers want to make visible this year the effects of the health crisis, which have aggravated the situation experienced by women, by supporting the bulk of care work. "The cuts in social services, rights and freedoms come to add to the systemic and daily sexist violence that are also at the center of the demands on which this demonstration wants to focus," they indicate.

The march on March 8 will not be the only act of protest that will take place this year. In fact, the Madrid 8m Commission, which is in charge of agreeing and organizing the actions that have been carried out for this date since 1977, indicates that the activities have already begun "and will intensify in the coming weeks."

This same Saturday, several groups of women have painted murals in different parts of the region in response to the vandalization, for the second time, of the feminist mural of Ciudad Lineal in which the figure of different women referents of feminism is recognized. Thus, this weekend there have been activities in Getafe, Alcorcón, Prosperidad, Ciudad Lineal, Alcobendas, Carabanchel or Latina, among others, because "in the face of destruction and violence, feminists create and build," they defend from the 8M Commission.

The demands of women for this 2022 are again articulated on four axes: violence, bodies, borders and economy. After ending 2021 with 43 women murdered by their partners or ex-partners, six best killed and another 30 orphans, the Commission says "enough is enough for all the violence we suffer in all areas and spaces of our lives: at home, work, public spaces, the couple, the family, the work environment, society or State institutions".

In addition, they claim the "right to decide, as a right of social justice that feminism defends, opening doors so that we can express different life projects, new ways of living sexuality, motherhood, the body and identity and/or gender expression" against the "control of our sexual and reproductive life", which "is an instrument of patriarchy to try to subjugate the bodies and lives of women, dykes and trans".

The 8M Commission is aware that "there are internal borders, built through colonialism, racism, Islamophobia, antigypsyism, aporophobia and capitalism, which with an interpretation exclude from citizenship discriminates with impunity through the Immigration Law, not respecting human rights and free circulation". Borders that especially affect migrant and racialized women.

Regarding the economy, they defend the need to "build an economy based on social and environmental justice", against patriarchy and capitalism that "generate strong inequalities, power relations and destruction of resources and the necessary conditions to have lives worthy".