Democratic life will be built with women’s labor!

We, as Tevgera Jinên Azad (TJA), welcome this year with the slogan “Insistence on socialism is the insistence on the emancipation of women’s labor” and greet May Day, which is the struggle of workers and laborers for justice and a dignified life.

We define this day as a field of struggle to make visible, defend and liberate the historically invisible labor of women. At the intersection of capitalist modernity and the patriarchal system, women’s labor has been both exploited and systematically ignored. Women shoulder the entire burden not only in the paid labor force, but also in domestic care services, agricultural production, migration routes, war zones and in times of crisis.

Today in the Middle East, especially in Kurdistan, women’s labor is oppressed not only by poverty, but also by war policies, displacement, cultural assimilation and state violence. The trustees continue to attack women’s labor and institutional gains. Women’s labor has been directly targeted because it is linked to the political will; it is tried to be excluded from social, cultural and political life. As TJA, we redefine the liberation of labor on the basis of women’s liberation. Women’s labor is not only part of economic production; it is also the power to rebuild and transform society.

On May 1st, we call on the women’s movements of the world:

Let us come together to organize common grounds of struggle jointly. As Kurdish women, we believe that the struggle for equality and justice waged by women in every geography from Latin America to Africa, from Asia to Europe is one. We struggle against male domination practiced in different languages, in different geographies, but in different forms by the same system. Women’s identity and labor can only be defended with a line of freedom that knows no borders. Our labor can gain meaning not in the consumption wheel of the capitalist system, but in a democratic, ecological and women’s emancipatory life.

On this May Day, we call on women’s organizations, trade unions, collectives and movements around the world:

Let us grow our international struggle to liberate women’s labor. Let’s learn from each other’s experiences, perpetuate solidarity and strengthen organization.

Our labor is our organization.

A free life is possible with women’s labor!

Jin, jiyan, azadî!

Tevgera Jinên Azad (TJA)