Each day should be an 8th of March

To celebrate the international women’s day, the 8th of March, we planned to protest for having women’s rights defended. More than 150 women from the outskirts of Durres met, a furious rain was “knocking” at the institutions doors. Many slogans regarding their rights and their social plagues were carried by them, while asking more attention from local governors.

On the main road, constructed last week, women were getting their old shoes wet in the puddles. The rain made the slogans wet, but the women voices were still strong. Education, employment, economic aid, to be treated as Durres citizens were just few of the requests - the dreamed luxury of these women.

Of course no one from the local governor’s office was there to calm the crowd and answer to their demands. They were, together with the employees (women), planning a party to celebrate the 8th of March; what dresses to put on and how to avoid wetting their new and expensive shoes. Biologically equal, but different in the social status. The women who worked in these institutions were equally blind and deaf as their chief to the crowd. Despite the rain, the crowd was for them the sad decor of the cold day of 8th of March.

No answer from the inside of the offices, they were observing the crowd from behind the windows. In the streets pedestrians running to get away from the rain were not involved in the protest. I bet they were asking: Against whom are they protesting? Citizens of Albania are used to political meetings, and automatically suggestions are activated when you see protesters: against Socialist or Democratic Party? But politics should be more than that. Human rights should be above politics. The request to defence the human rights is simply a battle to survive, to improve, and to inherit.
We stood in the rain protesting. At the same time the municipality had their own 8th of March arrangement about the commitment between the women NGO:s to reduce domestic violence and achieve gender equality. The commitment was called “The Promise To Fight Social Injustices That Penalizes Women”.

Obviously we who stood in the rain were not invited to the ceremony although “Association for Women with Social Problems” since 10 years is a leader on women issues in the Durres district. With this protest we just signed our exclusion from the partners’ list of municipality… Anyway we will keep protesting because each day should be an 8 march: to fight for our rights.