On behalf of the Euskal Herria Feminist Movement, Josebe Iturrioz and Silvia Rugamas took part in the Monday morning video. The feminist movement is ready to take responsibility for the situation caused by the coronavirus, with the aim of “reversing the situation”. To this end, the movement has decided to set up a crisis table to manage surveillance tasks and has called on the Basque and Navarro governments, the Commonwealth of Iparralde, the trade unions and the political parties to set it up. Once the questions have been answered, he has given them a 48-hour period to reply. “In this crisis, reality is fast moving and we don’t have time to lose,” they argued.

Beyond individual responses, the movement emphasizes the need to organize collectively: "The state of alarm has now been declared and lockdown and lockdown has been ordered, but there are no government measures to give a collective response. We want to remind you that no, although we are confined to our homes, the organization has to be collective.” In this sense, they explained that the crisis table will also be channeled through homes and telematics to ensure the health of the participants. According to the movement, social workers who have so far refused to make decisions, such as the feminist movement, workers’ associations, household workers, parents’ associations or workers’ homes, should also be at the table. The movement is committed to ensuring the transversality and technical quality of the table so as to ensure the participation of experts in care, medicine and economics.

“We are ready to assume our responsibility as a transcendental political agent,” they stressed, making it clear that the feminist movement will not leave its political agency in the hands of another person. The following were made quite clear: “We are the ones who know about care, and this crisis, although they call it a pandemic, is a crisis of care. The inability of states and governments to see the structural dimensioning of care is worrying.”

Need for paradigm shift

“The crisis of care to which we have been referring for years has been evident these days with the COVID-19 pandemic (…) It is not a cyclical thing; the crisis of care is structural”. Thus, the feminist movement has insisted on what has been repeated for a long time: the paradigm shift is necessary to give way to a society that puts lives at the centre. “So far our society has lived focused on markets and neoliberal logics and we are now seeing that we are not willing to protect people’s lives,” they read.

If we continue with the same paradigm, they affirm that leaving this crisis is useless: “We will only get out of this situation if we are able to change these capitalist and patriarchal logics, to put lives and care at the center.”

They have made it clear that the solution can only be achieved by organizing “together”, and for this they have considered it essential that social organization and public authorities interconnect with the agents involved in the care and sustainability of life.

Many responsibilities to the action taken

The feminist movement has identified a number of responsibilities for the measures that have been taken before the state of alarm and wants to have them present at the crisis table. One of those concerns is male violence, because they know that violence is not going to be quarantined; moreover, they warn that it can be aggravated because many women who suffer from it have to lock themselves up with their aggressors. In this regard, they have reminded the women killed in the Basque Country in the last week, as they have indicated.

On the other hand, the movement has also shown concern for other measures, "for the possibility of an increase in the crisis". Among other issues, they have pointed out that people are staying at home, not knowing what the economic compensation measures are if they exist; that although the entry of more people into residences is denied, no explanation has been given of how to care for dependent people; that what will happen in the case of migrants without the right to health is known; and that domestic workers have continued their activity, risking their contagion.

Statements by the feminist movement in Basque:

The Feminist Movement of the Basque Country will set up a technical table to deal with the crisis of care that Covi19 has exacerbated.

To this end, we have given the Basque and Navarro executives a 48-hour period to confirm whether they accept our proposal. https://t.co/cAsgGV9MK5

— Salda Bada (@SaldaAukV) March 16, 2020