International Conference: 100 years of women’s vote: celebration or mobilization? Warsaw, 29-31 March 2019

Welcome Adresse –  Heidi Meinzolt

We women from Poland, Germany, UK, Croatia, Bosnia, US, Georgia, Austria, France and other countries meet here in Warsaw because we remember 100 years of women’s voting rights.

We are celebrating that we are always working cross-border. We refuse nationalism, separating human beings by nationalistic and male-dominated power interests. We women are nevertheless alerted by new walls and fences in Europe 30 years after the break down of the Berlin wall and an end of the cold war. These barriers can never separate us in our common will to contribute to a more just and peaceful society!

Our cooperation means trust, exchange and solidarity especially when our lifes, our bodies are threatened again, our security endangered by (extreme) right wing political parties, politicians and tendencies – in close cooperation with the church. We express our solidarity from here in Poland with the women protesting today in Verona against a restrictive abortion law.

Our struggle is complex because it comprises all spheres of life and “human security”. We are not going back in “traditional roles” at home, we raise our voices, we  are in the street. We are participating in all spheres of social, cultural and political life.

We women vote against politics splitting societies through austerity measures, feminisation of poverty for the profit and priviledges of just a few.  We want active care and commons and a respect of our equal rights and freedoms.

As peace is also not a priviledge but a right, we women are protesting together against new armaments, from weapons of mass-destruction to SALWs, used also for domestic violence, against exports of war and violence through arm’s traffic and against the outsourcing of border management to military business. We want to move the money from war to peace and struggle for a sustainable development and climate justice.

We are not requesting living in a paradise but we are full of confidence that women can make a change. This conference will contribute to strengthen our voices for diversity, meaningful participation, protection, equality – in solidarity with men on our sides.

This conference will mobilize us! Women vote Peace!