WOMEN
FOR CHANGE
"THE
STRUGGLE OF THE WOMEN AND
PEOPLES
FOR THEIR
RIGHTS AND FOR SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION"
Women
represent 51% of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean,
which in numbers is 334,628,227;
in Ecuador we are 9,016,398.
This
2023 Seminar is taking place under conditions in which capitalism is
showing its most inhuman and brutal face characterized by wars of
imperialist aggression, colonial and cultural subjugation promoted by
the great powers, in order to subjugate the population of the world
to a situation of poverty and denial of their fundamental rights. The
whole planet is being
conditioned to the development
of the contradictions
inherent in capitalism.
In particular, we are witnessing the sharpening of the
inter-imperialist contradictions that shows the intention of the
great powers to implement strategies that allow them
to maintain themselves
or become the undisputed
masters of the world. We see how the
powers are forming
their economic and
military blocs and pacts to defend their interests by destroying the
living conditions of millions of human beings. The war between the
great imperialist powers in Ukraine
is an expression of this, but there are also armed conflicts in other
countries: Sudan, Pakistan, Myanmar, Yemen, the Middle East and other
trade wars with which the military apparatuses and armies
of the imperialist
powers that are contending for the economic and political control of
the world
are strengthened. The inter-imperialist struggles, particularly the
one between the United States and China, warn us of the danger of a
world war.
Women,
who are part of the peoples, cannot take sides for one or another
imperialist power, for one or another economic and political alliance
of the capitalist states, because they all represent the interests of
the big international monopolies, of imperialist finance capital.
For this reason, we reiterate
our condemnation of the
inter-imperialist war
and all forms of aggression against the peoples, because we have the
experience of the history
of humanity that shows
that in conflicts it is we become spoils of war. We are women, and
therefore, we raise the banners of peace, which means fighting in
defense of the life of the working classes, the women and peoples and
in defense of our right to a dignified life.
What
is happening in today's world with so much exploitation, inequality
and violence is the result of the
sharpening
of the contradictions
of capitalism that places
capital over life, the interests of the big bourgeoisie over the
working classes and peoples. This is a
situation that places
before us
the challenge
of strengthening the organization and
consciousness of women to demand
from the governments the unrestricted application of human
rights and in particular
our rights as women and to work
against all forms of exploitation and subjection to capital.
As
women of the delegation of Ecuador, we express our solidarity with
the women and peoples
who are victims of aggression
by foreign
powers, who
are confronted by the reactionary and conservative patriarchal
practices that are killing millions of women in Africa, the Middle
East and Asia.
We
cannot remain impassive in the face of the growth of poverty in the
world and watch as more than 258 million girls and boys do not attend
school, which represents 1 out of 5 children; The wage gap between
men and women is increasing to 24%. In Ecuador, women's wages are
lower than men's, there are more women unemployed, 39% of men have
full employment but only 27% of women. Serious problems of access to
health services are causing the death of 21,300 people a day. That is
to say, one person dies every 4 seconds, while the fortunes of a few
billionaires have multiplied since the pandemic, since the 1% of the
richest population in the world has hoarded about 20 times more
wealth than 50% of the world population, which represents 4 billion
human beings. Of the poorest population, the largest percentage is
women, with 252 male billionaires owning more wealth than one billion
women and girls in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. Currently
2.1 million people die of hunger annually.
Violence
against women, girls and adolescents is the greatest scourge today at
a global level and knows no borders, because it extends throughout
the world in its various manifestations: femicides, violence, sexual
trafficking within the family and in all social areas is multiplying;
sex trafficking, forced child marriages, genital mutilation, death
due to the criminalization of abortion, trafficking for organized
crime is the order of the day. The fight against violence against
women is mobilizing millions of people and has created awareness of
other problems of inequality and exclusion faced by different sectors
of the world's population, who now claim their rights to diverse and
free identities and ways of life.
But
it is also encouraging the awakening of millions of women, youth and
workers who are organizing and fighting against the power of
capitalism on all continents; the popular struggles are put the
exploiters against the wall, as in France, Germany, Latin America and
the Caribbean. The Women's Movement and Women in the world constitute
a revolutionary and emancipatory force for women and the peoples.
It
must be borne in mind that the women's and feminist movements form a
diverse and contradictory movement, because within them there are
ideological and political forces that aim to lead half of the world's
population in accordance with their purposes. They are forces that
identify with the left, social democracy and those who defend the
status quo and the power of the big bourgeoisie using the just
demands of women. This is happening in Ecuador and Latin America;
however, it is also encouraging to note that in the struggles for the
demand for women's rights there is a majority popular, leftist and
anti-imperialist current that is mobilizing thousands of women to put
an end to the historical patriarchal oppression that keeps us
subordinate and linking this struggle to action against capitalism
and for social transformation.
THE CURRENT SITUATION IN ECUADOR AND WOMEN'S LIVING
CONDITIONS
Our
country is characterized as having a backward capitalist development
and dependent on the decisions of the great imperialist powers,
especially US imperialism and to a lesser extent Chinese imperialism
and the European Union. This condition of submission is expressed in
the dependence on productive, scientific, technical development, as
well as in the external debt and the conditions established by
imperialism through the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank
and other mechanisms through which the country is forced to apply
neoliberal policies.
Ecuador,
together with all the countries of the region, is going through a
crisis in all economic, social and political aspects. On May 17,
President Guillermo Lasso, in agreement with the Armed Forces and the
support of the U.S. Embassy, decreed the "Cross Death" with
which he dissolved the National Assembly and called for early
elections of President and Vice President; of national and provincial
assembly members to complete the term from 2023 to 2025. In this
period Lasso has the power to govern by executive decrees. This
decision constitutes a temporary solution to the political crisis
since the serious problems of insecurity, the increase in drug
trafficking and organized crime remain, because those responsible are
in the highest spheres of bourgeois institutions: in the executive,
in the organs of justice, in the top ranks of the Police, the Armed
Forces and the Navy; they are owners or shareholders of banks,
powerful companies and large media. The government has declared
itself incompetent to deal with this problem by declaring, in Lasso's
words, that this "is a war between you and crime."
The
abandonment of the Ecuadorian State to the population is not only
expressed in the issue of insecurity; the same is happening in
aspects that have to do with the life and well-being of the working
classes and people. The public health sector – including the social
security system – is experiencing a critical situation, without a
sufficient number of professionals, with a deficit in infrastructure,
lacking medicines. Hundreds of educational establishments have been
destroyed or are in terrible conditions; there is a deficit of
teachers at all levels of the education system. According to INEC
(National Institute of Statistics and Census), about 195,000 children
and young people did not return to the classroom after the pandemic,
there are not enough spaces for the men and women can go to
universities. The Ministry of Education does nothing to ensure that
children and young people can count on safe classrooms in the face of
the increase in sexual harassment and rape that is causing deaths in
educational institutions; the State does not create sources of
employment because public investment is practically non-existent.
However, the rulers are agile and quick to comply with the demands of
the International Monetary Fund or to find mechanisms that give
millions of dollars to the most powerful economic groups, as
established by the proposal to "compensate" the bankers
because interest rates have been raised internationally. The State is
an instrument at the service of the big bourgeoisie through the
implementation of laws and measures that have been established by the
different governments of recent decades, not only Lasso but also the
governments of Rafael Correa and Lenin Moreno. It is evident that
they are the most efficient defenders of the big economic groups of
the country and the big imperialist monopolies.
The
economic crisis in our country is seen in the increase in poverty.
The National Survey of Employment, Unemployment and Underemployment
2022 (ENEMDU) of June 2022 states that "as of June 2022, poverty
at the national level stood at 25.0% and extreme poverty at 10.7%. In
urban areas, poverty reached 16.7% and extreme poverty 5.2%. Finally,
in rural areas, poverty reached 42.9% and extreme poverty 22.7 %.
This means that 25% of Ecuador's population or about 4.5 million
people are mired in poverty, that one in four Ecuadorians lives on
$87.57 a month ($2.91 a day). It means that they can barely cover 12%
of a basic basket [of necessities]. People living in extreme poverty,
who earn a per capita household income of less than $49.35 per month
($1.65 per day), represent 10.7 per cent of the population.
In
the educational field, the Transform exam was eliminated. The system
has been applied in the country since Correa to select those who
enter public universities, which is why in the last decade, more than
a million and a half young people have been left out of higher
education. This has been a demand that we have raised because, like
what the ENES and the Ser Bachiller were, it responds to a
standardized, exclusive and anti-scientific conception of the
university admission system. Its elimination is an achievement,
however, the government has transferred the problem to the
universities, therefore, each of them will determine the means and
entry requirements of the new bachelors, the struggle continues for
free admission.
In
the particular case of women in our country, the reality we live in
is very complex because we are discriminated against because of our
gender, class and ethnicity, so it is necessary to expose numbers,
data that show this discrimination despite the fact that we
constitute the majority of the population.
As
of August 2022, according to INEC, Ecuador has a population of
18,009,591 inhabitants; 51.05% are women. According to ESPAC 2021,
72.73% of men and 27.27% of women are engaged in agricultural
production. 22.8% work in the area of commerce. The INEC published
monthly figures that show that the unemployment rate stood at 4.7% in
April 2022; when analyzing unemployment by sex, the results show that
women have a higher rate than men. At the national level, 5.8% of
women in the EAP (economically active population) were unemployed,
while the rate for men was 3.9%, a statistically significant
difference that establishes that women do not have equal conditions
to access the right to a job.
The
wage gap also remains wide; for March 2022 the average work income of
a man with a job was $453.60, while for women it was $412.30; the
case of women first that does not reach the basic salary of $425 and,
worse the basic basket, which, as of June 2022 according to INEC
data, the family basket reaches a value of US $751, 04.
The
above shows us the feminization of employment and precarious work; it
is women who work in flower farms, paid domestic workers, rural
workers, on shrimp and banana plantations, broccoli plantations,
among others. The inequities and discriminations that prevail against
women in the world of paid work are often linked to reproductive
obligations and productive activities. Domestic work is still
considered an almost natural obligation of women, but this is NOT so;
it must be distributed among the members of the household to achieve
equal conditions for women and men in all areas of life.
With
regard to education by level of instruction, half of the female
population of Ecuador has achieved at least basic general education ;
but only 13 out of
each 100 have higher or
university studies. On
the other hand, there is still a significant group that lacks any
type of studies.
According
to MIDUVI, as of December 2020 the housing deficit was 2,744,125
households, housing
is one of the basic necessities.
Female-headed households, persons with disabilities, single parents,
those with dependent children or adults, devote a high percentage of
resources to the care of their family members. Therefore, their
possibilities of participating in the formal labor market are
limited, thus increasing their level of vulnerability.
Although
Lasso signed Executive Decree No. 452
in which he ordered the
implementation of control operations to prevent price speculation in
basic necessities, inflation reached 3.86% as of July 2022. The
high cost of living, the rise in the prices of basic necessities such
as bread, milk, flour and oil has greatly affected the economy of
households in the popular sectors , so we demand the fixing of prices
of basic products of the family basket. On the other hand, regarding
the health care and life situation, the Statistical Registry of Live
Births and Fetal Deaths from 2013 to 2020 establishes that 16.3% of
women become mothers from 15 to 19 years, 49.7% from 20 to 29 years
and 17.8% from 30 to 34
years. Ecuador has one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in
the Americas. And in the case of girls, more than 3,000 girls under
the age of 14 become mothers as a result of rape in Ecuador every
year. Behind these figures are the lives of girls dealing with not
only the physical but also the psychological and social impacts of
having survived rape and being forced to become mothers when they did
not want it or were not prepared for it. That
is why the struggle for legal, safe
and free
abortion is a JUST, URGENT AND NECESSARY
DEMAND.
In
our country, violence against women is an alarming situation; 65 out
of every 100 women have suffered at least one violent incident in
their lives: 57% psychological, 35.4% physical, 33% sexual, and 16.4%
patrimonial. Violence came from their partner in 42.8% of the cases,
32.6% in the social sphere, 20.3% within the family, 20.1% at work
and 19.2% in the educational arena.
To
the situation of violence and insecurity that is striking Ecuador is
added another hard and persistent reality; until May 2022, violence
against girls, adolescents and women has increased; until March 2023
56 femicides have been counted. In 2022 there were 332. Cases of
sexual violence against children and women is also a very serious
problem as is the increase in enforced disappearances due to
abduction and human trafficking.
The
Lasso government has been unable to respond to women's demand for the
budget for the implementation of the Law on the Prevention and
Eradication of Violence against Women and its political decisions are
in the line of demagogy and non-compliance. In November 2022, the
Ministry of Women's Affairs was created, which in no way has meant a
change for the situation of working women and the different popular
sectors.
In
the current process of presidential and assembly elections, the
women's movement won an important victory because the National
Electoral Council was forced to change the regulations for the
integration of candidacies after an important action of struggle that
unified national and local organizations in the demand of
unconstitutionality. Today full parity is established for all offices
in addition to 25% of young people and representatives of cultural
diversity. After the first round of elections, we can affirm that it
is not enough to respect gender parity in these processes, which
leads to the nomination of candidates by 50% and also to the election
of women to the different offices. For women from the popular
sectors, it is urgent to work for the training of political leaders
in order to gain spaces with women committed to the demands of the
working classes, women and the people.
In
the second round we do not have a choice that represents the demands
of women and all popular sectors of the country and for this reason,
WOMEN FOR CHANGE CALLS FOR A "NULL" VOTE as a show of
rejection of the choices forged by the ruling classes.
Our participation in the Third Meeting of Women of
Latin America and the Caribbean – Brazil 2023
We
held the Third Meeting of Women of Latin America and the Caribbean in
Brasilia – Brazil, South America, from July 21 to 23, 2023, with
great revolutionary joy and combativeness [See durhamspark.blogspot.com/2023/08/pcmm-l-third-meeting-of-women-of-latin.html ]. In the three days, several
women of various ages, black, urban and rural workers, students,
women with disabilities, unemployed, artists, self-employed workers,
intellectuals, indigenous women and women from maroon colonies from
11 countries, learned about the economic, political and social
situation in which working women, their families and their peoples
live. We learned among ourselves the different forms of struggle and
forms of organization that the women's movement has developed in the
countries: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador,
El Salvador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.
The
Ecuadorian delegation was made up of 84 women and young people from
14 provinces and 32 women's, feminist, human rights organisations and
collectives, local authorities and representatives of trade union and
political organizations in the country.
The
Meeting was an extraordinary scenario to analyze in depth the reality
of women of the popular sectors of our countries, to identify their
main problems and their causes, to establish actions that let them
strengthen the struggles of women organized in each country with
solidarity actions at regional level.
The
resolutions adopted in Brazil last July must be taken up by
revolutionary organizations and parties to strengthen the struggle of
the working classes and peoples against capitalism and for social
transformation. The following are the main resolutions that must not
only be disseminated, but must be channeled for implementation
through the broad and democratic organization of women in each of our
countries, because we are aware that despite the progress made in the
development of women, the rights of women won through the struggle so
far are still not enough. Not only because what is written in the law
does not guarantee its application in reality, but because we are
convinced that the only guarantee to win the equality and
emancipation of women is with the overthrow of capitalism and the
establishment of socialism in Ecuador, Latin America and the world.
Our
tasks for the coming years, for which we must
fight:
Work
for the strengthening of left and
revolutionary women's
organizations and their active
involvement in the struggles of the working classes and people for
their rights.
Strengthen
the Meeting of Women of Latin America and the Caribbean with the
integration of all the countries of the region and the broad and
democratic participation of women's organizations from popular
sectors of our countries.
Actions
for the defense and nationalization of natural resources and
confronting the policies of surrender, imperialist plunder and
plunder.
For
labor and wage equality, for a general increase in wages, for the
guarantee of well-paid work and employment with social security for
the four million unemployed
women in the region;
Organize
actions to fight against the high cost
of living, for the freezing of prices of basic
necessities and against the effects
of the escalation of inflation
on the living conditions of working families and the popular
sectors.
Promote
a broad campaign for a continental emergency on violence against
women and for more investments to end the cult of violence that
victimizes more than 4,400 women each year throughout Latin
America;
Fight
against any threat of fascism, militarization and coups d'état in
our countries. Demand punishment for the political crimes committed
against the working class, women, political activists who have been
persecuted, disappeared, imprisoned, tortured and killed by the
State and by
authoritarian, fascist,
military and coup governments,
yesterday and today.
Fight
for the right to autonomy of women's bodies, with a broad campaign
for the legalization of abortion, which must be legal and safe for
all countries in Latin America and the Caribbean;
To
promote action against prostitution and trafficking in persons.
Ensure access to employment for women who have subjected to sexual
exploitation;
Fighting
for the full rights of migrant women and their families
Abolition
of all laws that STRENGTHEN the mechanisms of women's subordination;
Continental
day for the suspension of payment of public debt to international
financial organizations; the immediate audit of all debts;
Continental
day for the right to free and quality services in comprehensive
education and care centers for children and education for all
children and young people.
Days
of struggle for the rights of women and their families to health
care, housing, education, recreation and political participation.
Here,
woman, forging
unity, for the
new homeland, for freedom!
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