[av_one_full first min_height=” vertical_alignment=” space=” custom_margin=” margin=’0px’ padding=’0px’ border=” border_color=” radius=’0px’ background_color=” src=” background_position=’top left’ background_repeat=’no-repeat’ animation=”]
[av_heading heading=’EDITORIAL’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”][/av_heading]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”]
Breaking down barriers
A DAY before yesterday’s Bonifacio Day was International Day of Women Human Rights Defenders, a day which paid tribute to the work as well as the persisting challenges against courageous women who stood up against State repression and all forms of human rights violations and gender-based violence.
We are humbled by the work of women activists who continue to fight in defense of women’s and people’s rights and we honor their lives and their struggles. Regardless of where our battles are – in the rural areas, the urban centers, inside schools, in indigenous communities, in offices – they remain our light, our inspiration in the face of momentous challenges. As we remember their struggles, we tread on the path towards demanding accountability, towards the pursuit for justice, and genuine freedom and democracy.
Women activists, given the nature of their work, have been targeted even by counter-insurgency measures which seek to abolish any form of resistance. As of Oct. 31, 2016 there are 401 political prisoners, 33 of them are women. Detained for trumped-up charges and fabricated evidences, they remain a stark indication that underneath the rhetoric of democracy is the intolerance for dissent and opposition, for comprehensive and genuine social change. These women activists are community organizers, teachers, health workers, disaster relief workers, among others, who have dedicated their lives in the struggle for a world free from imperialist rule and plunder and State oppression. The criminalization of human rights and political activists continue, and are among the many forms of political repression in the course of their work of rendering services to the marginalized sectors of society.
We express our solidarity with women human rights defenders all over the world. We stand as one in breaking down barriers of state repression and oppression, unified in the struggle of advancing women’s and people’s rights.
[/av_textblock]
[/av_one_full]
