YEREVAN, MARCH 7, ARTSAKHPRESS. On Wednesday, Feminist Mobilisations will hold a procession for women’s rights mottoed “Not One More” in Sofia. The event, which will mark March 8 as International Women’s Day, will take place for a seventh year running. It will start at the National Palace of Culture at 7 p.m.
Feminist Mobilisations describe themselves as an all-volunteer feminist collective struggling for social, economic and political gender equality by organizing protest actions and awareness campaigns about women’s rights and gender-based violence.
The organizers noted in a Facebook post that since the beginning of 2023, one woman has been losing her life every week in this country due to domestic and gender-based violence by her close one or partner. They resent politicians’ “ugly and cheap propaganda against women and LGBTI+ people in Bulgaria” and Parliament’s failure to pass effective legislation addressing the issue.
Feminist Mobilisations see a “disproportionately adverse impact” of the current crises on women, and especially on women with an ethnic and minority background, migrants and refugees, socially disadvantaged and disabled women, and LGBTI+.
The street action will insist on political empowerment of women and more opportunities to achieve equal representation and participation in governance and decision-making at local, national and international level.
In 2023, the procession will voice “intransigence with inequalities” and will protest against “war, tyranny and violence ruining the lives of hundreds of thousands of people”, the organizers said on Facebook.
The participants will demand adequate and free care of pregnant women, attention to maternal health, and a national programme for sex and reproductive health. They want to see measures ending all forms of violence against women who have recently given birth and female patients. Other grievances include free and safe access to reproductive health institutions and services and contraceptives, a guaranteed right and access to abortion on demand, and a focus on identifying and rejecting social gender stereotypes curtailing children’s potential and opportunities.
The protesters will also demonstrate their solidarity with women in Iran and Kurdistan under the slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom”.
