International Women’s Day Statement

March 8, 2008

In 1908, 15,000 women marched through the streets of New York demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights. A hundred years later, women still suffer unfair and unsafe working conditions and still we march for our rights.
We are women working in agriculture, community clinics, construction, entertainment places, factories, legal aid clinics, private households and in our own homes. We are local women, we are women from across the country and across the borders. We are working women and today we are walking for all working women. Today we walk for better pay for women! Today we walk for social security for all working women! Today we walk for safe working conditions for all working women.
Take a look at the constructions sites where we work, perched high above Chiang Mai with nothing to protect our safety! These sites are not safe. We need safe working conditions!
We work in the industrial estate in Lampoon, manufacturing electronic products. We are exposed to lead poisoning. We need the right to collective bargaining to improve the protection against such exposure.
We work like other women work, but we get no recognition or acceptance of our work because we work as sex workers. We want recognition as workers now.
Our Burmese sisters work in garment factories on the border. They are paid much less than the legal minimum wage. To get a living wage, they must work overtime every night! We demand not less than the minimum wage for all workers!
We work in the fruit and flower farms around Chiang Mai. We come from the mountains of Thailand, Lao and Burma. We have to spray pesticides which we know are dangerous to our health. We need proper protective clothing!
We work in private households as domestic workers. Our work is not protected by the labour laws. We are dependent on our employers, but some are fair and some are not fair at all. We need rights under the law. We need one day paid leave a week!
TODAY IS INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY. WE CANNOT WAIT ANOTHER HUNDRED YEARS FOR BETTER PAY AND WORKING CONDITIONS, THE CHANGE MUST COME TODAY!