Worldwide Girls’s Day: On Saturday sixth March 2004 I photographed an occasion in Trafalgar Sq. to have fun Worldwide Girls’s Day which was the next Monday, eighth March.
First celebrated in 1909 by the Socialist Occasion of America, Worldwide Girls’s Day was established in 1910 by the Second Worldwide following a proposal by Clara Zetkin, though the date solely turned 8 March in 1913 when peace rallies have been held on that day shortly earlier than the First World Warfare. IWD rallies led to the beginning of the Russian Revolution in 1917 and Lenin made the day an official “vacation”, though it remained a working day there till 1965. The UN adopted it in 1975 and in 2005 the TUC known as for it to be made a UK public vacation.
This yr, 2025, the eighth March is a Saturday and there shall be an all-women march in London, Million Girls Rise, demanding an finish to male violence to ladies and ladies, starting on Oxford Avenue and marching to a rally in Trafalgar Sq.. I photographed the primary London Million Girls Rise in 2008 and have lined the occasion working from the sidelines most years since.
I had photographed Worldwide Girls’s Day occasions in some earlier years, and there are additionally a couple of photos from 2003 on My London Diary, however I feel 2004 was the primary extra prolonged put up. Right here with the standard corrections to case and spelling and so on is what I wrote in 2004.
Lady’s Court docket Places Bush and Blair On Trial
There are numerous occasions in London across the begin of March related with Worldwide Lady’s Day on the 8 March. In Trafalgar Sq. on Saturday sixth a Lady’s Court docket put George Bush and Tony Blair on trial for crimes in opposition to ladies, youngsters and males. The occasion was part of the fifth International Girls’s Strike.
Occasions began with a a brief play by a gaggle from Crossroads Girls’s Centre in North London highlighting the racist immigration coverage of Fortress Europe, typical agit-prop, enlivened as at all times by some particular person performances that relied extra on persona than script.
All good enjoyable with the villains being George W Bush and our very personal Tony Blair.
Good enjoyable if it wasn’t for the truth that the implications of the actions of those males and the pursuits they stand for have been felt world wide.
Selma James, widow of C L R James, then opened the trial of Bush and Blair, represented of their absence by giant puppets. One of many first witnesses was Elsa T, an Eritrean rape sufferer whose transferring testimony was given us in translation.
One other transferring speech got here from Jocelyn Hurndall, the mom of Tom Hurndall who was shot by an Israeli soldier whereas making an attempt to guard youngsters in Palestine. The clothes he was sporting to establish himself as a non-combatant apparently made him right into a goal.
Different audio system included representatives from the Black Girls’s Rape Motion undertaking, a Native American girl, a lady soldier, Mrs N from Zimbabwe whose son died in a British jail, and a number of other males together with Brian Haw from the 24/7 picket in Parliament Sq..
A few extra photos on My London Diary.
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Tags: 2004, agit-prop, Black Girls’s Rape Motion, Brian Haw, Bush and Blair on Trial, Clara Zetkin, Crossroads Girls’s Centre, Eritrean rape sufferer, Fortress Europe, George W Bush, international ladies’s strike, worldwide ladies’s day, IWD, Jocelyn Hurndall, London, million ladies rise, My London Diary, Palestine, peter Marshall, protest, racist immigration coverage, Selma James, shot by an Israeli soldier, Tom Hurndall, Tony Blair, Lady’s Court docket, Zimbabwe
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