Maputo – Mozambique, 8 March 2021

Dear companions and friends,

Another 8 March day passes. This year the UN invites us to reflect and debate the full and effective participation of women and decision-making in public life, as well as the elimination of violence, to achieve gender equality and empowerment.

There still seems to be a long way to go for women to achieve equality and get rid of the obstacles that prevent them from having access to public spaces and power and from participating in decision-making processes because poverty, discrimination in access education, particularly for girls, in access to work and resources, as well as gender-based violence, still constitute barriers.

With COVID-19, health services are deteriorating, education is becoming increasingly inaccessible and precarious, maintaining jobs and access to employment have become more difficult, care for children and the elderly has weighed more on women. women.

Public spaces and decision-making spaces continue to be occupied mainly by men, despite the fact that women are the majority. These continue to depend on the goodwill of men to access these spaces.

Women do not want to be numbers, they do not want to be simple quotas, they want to have a voice and participate in discussions on social, economic, cultural and environmental problems and present their proposals for solutions. Women want public policies that address the specific concerns of women caregivers, mothers, workers and breadwinners.

As activists for women’s rights, we feel that we have stepped back in our achievements. The mandatory social distancing and confinement did not allow us to do our job of protecting the rights of women and girls, already conquered, and fighting for those who are not being respected, with the same vigor that we had been doing before the pandemic.

However, despite these difficulties, some national associations were present in the online debates on relevant issues on women’s rights, and they also expressed their repudiation of the flagrant situations of violation of women’s rights. Therefore, women made an effort not to leave the space of struggle for the respect of women’s human rights. We salute these women for their tireless work because they kept the Federation’s flame alive and live the continuity of our struggle, even in times of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Therefore, on this 8th of March, we women of FIFCJ should reflect and debate the theme that was proposed to us in order to seek other solutions for the urgent achievement of equality because women have been waiting for this gender equality for a long time and it is not it’s just that they keep waiting. Let’s all come together and follow what each one brings to the debates.

A brotherly hug to all.