Women in Cardiff march on the streets on International women’s day to demonstrate against rising gender pay gap, sexual crimes, racism and exploitation.
Cardiff’s women celebrated International Women’s Day yesterday, taking to the streets, striking from their jobs and demonstrating against crimes and exploitation faced by them.
The march organised by Women’s Strike Assembly Cymru took place from Cardiff Central Library to the Trinity Centre, Newport Road, catching eyeballs as they marched in unison despite the rain.
Rhiannion Williams,who works as a midwife, spoke about gender pay gap“We’re striking from our jobs and unpaid responsibilities to show the capitalist world that it needs us…We need change now!’’ said Rhiannon Williams, one of the organisers of the event.
“Gender pay gap was 13.6% in 2018…The World Economic Forum has predicted, it will take 61 years to close the gender pay gap in Western Europe,’’ she continued.
“Women united, we’ll never be defeated!’’ was the motto as about 30 people joined the march, with another hundred present at the assembly point at the Trinity Centre.
Over 200 people attended a demonstration against universal credit and benefit sanction, mum’s strike with stay and play and the concluding live performances, which were the other events of the day.
Julie Morgan, AM – Cardiff (North), congratulated all the women on showing solidarity on a rainy day.The strike took place in six other cities including Bristol, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Leeds, Brighton and with the largest turnout in London with about 2000 people.
Tessa Marshall, another organiser of the strike, who in the recent past has been a victim of violent sexual crime herself, emphasised on building a stronger community and raising awareness about the sexual violence that women face.
“My main aim is to get people talking to each other, listening to each other and establishing a more feminist community in Cardiff,” said Marshall. ”We need to be more connected to support each other better.’’
Tessa Marshall spoke about a stronger community and raising awareness about sexual violenceStudents from different nationalities joined the event to discuss the issues they faced back in their countries and as immigrants in the UK.
”Late at night, when I go home, I am holding my keys between my fingers, because if someone tries to do something, I have something to protect myself,” says Marquan, a French woman studying in Cardiff, who feels women are unsafe not just in the UK but everywhere in the world.
Here is a walk through the events during the day:
.embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }
Credits: Francisco Rodriguez and Shubham Shukla contributed generously.