MANIFESTO 25N: Stop Militarism, Protect Women’s Lives
REARMING TAKES THE LIVES OF ALL OF US
Statement on the International Day for the Elimination of Gender-Based Violence.
On November 25, the Party of the European Left raised its voice against a Europe that invests in war and fails to protect women. The governments that finance wars are the same ones that make sexist violence invisible and cut back on its prevention, care and protection. While our societies are being militarized, women’s rights, equality, and lives are being dismantled.
The data doesn’t lie:
- 1 in 3 women in the EU has experienced physical or sexual violence.
- Only 1 in 4 dare to report it.
- Gender-based violence has a cost of 366,000 million euros a year, a figure that shows the lack of political will to invest in its real eradication.
Meanwhile, those same governments allocate 343,000 million euros a year in military spending. More than 30% of that money is invested in weapons, military technology and armies.
They prioritize fueling wars over women’s lives.
They prioritize a war economy over an economy of defense of life.
They prioritize naturalizing violence over denouncing it and eliminating its causes.
It is not an oversight, but the expression of a patriarchal ideology that sustains violence as a tool of domination: over women, over peoples, over all bodies and territories that are considered inferior.
They deny the very existence of sexist violence so as not to invest in its eradication, in the same way that they justify rearmament and militarization with false discourses of humanitarian aid, when in reality they seek to subjugate.
They do not want a society of free and equal people. They are not interested in sexual or affective education based on equality, nor in transforming the structures that perpetuate patriarchy. They prefer to maintain a hierarchical and violent society rather than build one based on justice and dignity.
As ActionAid denounces in Italy:
- Only 2% of the funds actually reach the anti-violence centers.
- Only 14% is allocated to prevention.
- Meanwhile, the bill on femicide focuses on repression, without attacking the structural and cultural causes that fuel violence.
Militarized societies deepen patriarchy, sharpen its maximum expressions of violence and inequality, and normalize the use of force to subjugate those they consider inferior: women, peoples, territories. The colonial logic is reproduced in our bodies and in our lives.
The Party of the European Left demands:
- Reorientation of military spending towards policies of equality and prevention of sexist violence. A minimum part of what is spent on weapons would be enough to finance public campaigns, training in equality, sentimental and sexual education and proper resources for the care and protection of women.
- Transparency and agility in the distribution of funds for the eradication of patriarchal violence. Resources must reach those who save lives, without bureaucratic obstacles or unjustifiable delays.
- A structural commitment to primary prevention. It is not enough to act when it is already late. We want a Europe that educates, takes care and protects from the very start.
We don’t want empty promises. We want liberated lives. Enough with wars that kill outside and inside. Enough with governments that finance violence and destroy lives.
Vous pouvez télécharger la déclaration en langue française ici : MANIFESTE 25N : Journée internationale pour l’élimination de la violence basée sur le genre.