Venezuelan women protest for better wages and pensions (photos)

Dozens of Venezuelan women gathered in Caracas this Friday, International Women’s Day, to demand fair wages, working conditions and pensions, in addition to greater political participation.

“We are demanding good wages, good pensions, HCM (hospitalization, surgery and maternity insurance), that our collective contract be respected, (…) autonomy of the union leadership,” Marie Infante told EFE. yes.”

The purple march crossed a section of one of the capital’s main avenues, where protesters carried messages such as “Don’t congratulate me today, it’s better not to rape me”, “Freedom for political prisoners” and “Venezuela is here”. Had taken the signal. A woman’s name.

Many women held placards with the words ‘work’ and ‘hope’ written on them and some chanted slogans like “We are not giving up” in unison.

“We achieved the salary, but the salary is not fair; “We achieved retirement and pensions, but they are not fair, we achieved political participation, but it is also not fair,” Judith León, president of the Federation of Colleges of Bioanalysts of Venezuela, told EFE.

For this reason, “there is nothing to celebrate,” and they are “demanding women’s rights to live free from violence and violence on the streets.”

For her part, Marialbert Barrios, director of the feminist organization Wommu, told EFE that they also fight for women who “don’t have a voice, who suffer from inequality, discrimination, who keep shouting about the pay gap, who Today, from their homes, they do not get any protection from the state.”

She said, “It is not enough to be busy with work to be a working woman, because the woman present in every home in Venezuela is fighting and protesting for the rights and future of all.”

Many human rights organizations demand that efforts against gender inequality and gender violence be redoubled.

With information from EFE