Korean Women's Day Festival Held in Celebration of 100 years of International Women's Day: "Women, Let's Open the Curtain of New Communities World."

 

Korean Women's Day Organizing Committee for Celebrating 100 Years of International Women's Day (KWDOC), formed by 167 nationwide women's organizations such as Korean Women’s Associations United (KWAU), Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU), and Women Corea, hosted Korean Women's Day Festival in celebration of 100 years of International Women's Day on March 8th 2008, under the slogan "Women, let's open the curtain of new communities world." This festival aims to commemorate 100 years of international women's day, to project a sustainable future of the Korean women's movement, and to have good communication with people.

At the ceremony, Wednesday demonstrations organized by the Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan won 20th Korean Women's Movement Award, and 'Statement by Korean Women' was declared entitled "Women, let's open the curtain of new communities world."

A big parade and performances were followed to show hope and dream for new communities society. At the parade 5,000 members in 4 different colors, belonging to nationwide women's organizations marched about 3.8 km, along with car parades with the themes of "Women open a world," "Women take action," "Women fly high," and "New communities world."

<Slogans>

"Women, Let's open the curtain of new communities world."

Neoliberal globalisation is worsening and hurting community values and social public spirits by driving people into unlimited competition and severe effectiveness. Worsening social polarization, feminization of poverty, irregular women workers, and discrimination and violence have become frequently heard and affected women's lives, which reflects the poor reality of women. Korean women's wages account for 60% of those of Korean men, and irregular women workers 67.6% out of the whole Korean women workers.  The great majority of care workers are women, whose rights are not protected. Poverty levels of Korean women single parent families are 3 times worse than male single parent families. While women take one step forward, but their hopes usually move two steps backward in the society. We, women are alternatives in new communities world where the values of humans, caring and mutual help are cherished. We, women endeavor to pro-actively make reciprocal communities world of women's strong wills, in which materialistic ideologies are overcome and human races are cared as invaluable, in which rights to work, human rights and welfare systems for social minorities and disabled people are highly protected, where social security nets are well woven and good jobs are created, where living communities with the value of caring and sharing actively function through socializing care labor, and in which diversity is respected and different people live together in peace.

<Our Three Major Values>: "humans, caring and mutual help"

Each word of ‘humans, caring and mutual help' has a very significant meaning, but their implications become far more strong, inter-mingled and valuable when they are put together.

'Humans' are a lot more precious roots of the tree of new communities world compared to materials. 'Caring' is a twinkling jewel of consideration, sharing and reciprocity in our lives, which cannot be changed into numbers or money. In addition, 'mutual help' is to respect differences between people and people, nature and humans, rural areas and cities, the disabled and the non-disabled, and migrant workers, and to grow up and live together in peace.

We, women endeavor to make new communities world in which the values of 'humans, caring and mutual help' are respected and 'happiness index' is a lot more powerful than 'gross national product', where caring is more valuable than competition and people believe in trust and promise, and in which people can prop on each other. We, women dream about the new communities world.

<9 Tasks>

1. End discrimination against irregular workers! Realize reasonable minimum wages!

2. Achieve food sovereignty!   Protect social status of women farmers! 

3. Expand the party list proportional representation system!

4. Build peaceful unification structures in the Korean peninsula!  

5. Carry out gender equal family policies, and strengthen public spirited child care systems!

6. Provide wholistic education on human rights and enact the Gender Discrimination Prevention Act!

7. End discrimination against migrant women and protect their rights! 

8. Strengthen 'affirmative action!'

9. Withdraw the new government's plan to build a cross-country canal!