The demonstration has departed from St. Antón Square at 19:00 in the afternoon and has run through France Street. The Gaztetxe del Casco Viejo started at 18:30 hours the youth block organized by Negea (The organization of young girls* in Vitoria-Gasteiz) under the motto Young girls intertwining the arrakalado system. But young women have not been the only protagonists, it has been a manifestation full of women* at different times of life. The march has stopped at several points of the tour and, from time to time, they have screamed: Let us take advantage of the crisis situation that the pandemic has brought to change everything!

Health crisis

Since the beginning of the health crisis caused by COVID-19, it has become clear what feminisms are shouting: women* (and mostly migrated women) are the ones who perform essential care tasks to maintain life. The situation generated by the health crisis has also increased the exploitation of domestic and care workers, the dismissal of many people, the situation of serious housing and lack of independence, the loss of income of sex workers, the free exercise of violence by the aggressors against women who live with them and their children.

Therefore, they have called for a community care system that guarantees the value of caregivers and the right of all people to be cared for. The public, because we have to end the business of care and the community, because they understand that it is the responsibility of all people to assume the care that corresponds to us. They wanted to remember the importance of organising community spaces.

They also wanted to denounce the militarization of the streets under the guise of the pandemic and police abuse and persecution with the most vulnerable groups, including the risk of life and residence of women in irregular administrative situations. They screamed: Nobody is illegal! They have called for the immediate repeal of the Aliens Act, because “it is infamous for people’s lives.”

Gender dissidence

Transsexuals have also been taken into account, as this machista and transphobic system systematically punishes them. They consider it urgent to adopt a trans law that eliminates the pathology of transsexuality.

They have called for great cracks in this heteropatriarchal, racist, transphobic, capitalist and biocidal system, and for the destruction of neo-slavery and relocation models. We also want an economy based on conscious, responsible and transformative consumption. They screamed: “We demand the system from sexual dissent, from the recognition of care and questioning our privileges.”

Transnational corporations

Transnational corporations are becoming more and more numerous, destroying and plundering natural resources and reducing the labour rights of workers to the maximum. They have denounced that some of these transnational corporations operating in countries with more flexibility and impunity are located in the Basque Country. “While a few benefit, others are losing everything. As borders close for people, they open up for the traffic of goods and lives.”

The event took place in the Plaza de la Virgen Blanca by the hand of the feminist rapper @Haizeatxo: “The police don’t take care of me, my friends do,” he sang.

GORA BORROKA FEMINIST! !#Gasteiz#m8#March 8@haizeatxoo @argia pic.twitter.com/3vX7iA82dR

— leoo (@lbueriberi) March 8, 2021