"Your borders will not protect you!" IW*S Speech on International Women*s Day

On International Women*s Day, March 8th, Ann from IW*S held a speech at the protest “Down With Imperialist Feminism” organized by the Alliance of Internationalist Feminists in Berlin.  Read the full speech below: 

Racism is a system that structures everything about our world from the personal to the global scale. Whenever war breaks out, or there are crises, women* are the first to be violated. White Feminism has always had its own priorities and agenda. You attempt to censor us and our very existence. You exclude migrants and refugees from joining protests. While Ukrainian refugees received protection under the Temporary Protection Directive, People from the Global South are ignored, violated, and left to die. 

Your privilege is directly linked to the suffering in Congo, Palestine, Yemen, Haiti, Afghanistan and in many places across the world. Systems of oppression are interlocked and cannot be separated: patriarchy, racism, capitalism, land theft, the violation of Indigenous rights and labor relations, ableism, colonial and imperial structures. How can you look away?   We reject your feminism, your neoliberal feminism, your white feminism and your femonationalism– We reject your imperial feminism!

Enough is Enough!

The EU’s socalled  “Action Plan Against Racism” promotes racist practices. The EU Pact on Migration and Asylum following the December 2023 trilogue negotiations will accelerate border procedures, intensify arbritrary detention and deportation, separate siblings from each other, collect the data of children from the age of 6, create more push backs and detentions – It will make the criminalization and the violence against (us) refugees easier than ever. The Common European Asylum System (GEAS) will legalize practices that violate human rights: it will soften the criteria for socalled “safe countries”, outsource the responsibility of migration and tighten the Dublin system.The Global North instrumentalizes its so called “development aid” to deport migrants and refugees out to reach its imperialist goals. The West takes back its development aid in times where it is the last lifeline for refugees who have endured the highest forms of violence that can be experienced.   This is further weaponization of white capitalism!

 Seeking asylum is not a crime! It is a fundamental human right.

There are many forms of “anti-racism”, but only one works. An anti-imperialist, anti-colonial stance is necessary to decolonize, to fight racist structures, and to demand justice. 

Stop deportation!  We demand the end of the Lager system. 

The asylum system has many barriers, lacks protection for refugees and is characterized by inhumane treatment and unlivable conditions. Refugees are isolated away from the rest of society, from decent public transportation connections, from access to independent information and other opportunities to connect. Refugee women face sexual exploitation, their experiences and voices are silenced when they are incarcerated. Asylum centres and airport deportation centres fail to record the number of suicides committed. 

Germany is trying to implement “Bezahlkarten” to further disenfrachise refugees, exert control, surveillance and restrictions. The Bezahlkarte is an attempt to further isolate us from the rest of society and deprives us refugees of our self-determination: it is an act of structural, systemic and physical violence. This Bezahlkarte will restrict refugees in their choice of which goods they can buy at which markets, how much cash they can withdraw and will completely forbid money transfers outside of the country. Refugees with disabilities will face a higher risk of lack of access to health care because the Bezahlkarte is limited to paying for only few services.  

We have nothing to lose but our chains!

After it steals our lands, the Global North exports its pollution, to then externalizes migration. The Global North and refuses to acknowledge its responsibility for climate-driven displacement, racial capitalism and fossil fuel extractivism; it has no issue admitting the goods produced through exploitative labour in the Global South to Europe, but not its people. We are here because you destroyed our lands! Your borders will not protect you!