The Left Berlin News & Comment
This is the archive templateCategory: Campaign of the week
Dziewuchy Berlin is a Polish feminist collective. It was founded in 2016 and its first action was the organisation of the Black Protest (Czarny Protest) on 3 October 2016, the first official women’s strike that was called to oppose the proposed total ban on abortion; this marked the beginning of the collective’s ongoing fight against the right-wing PiS government and other ultracatholic, anti-choice and fascist forces in our spheres.
In recent years, the PiS government and its allies have launched a campaign against the LGBT community in Poland. We see ourselves as a queer-feminist collective, and we stand with the Polish queer community against our common enemies.
In the four years since its founding, the collective has organised countless demonstrations, actions, performances, artistic events, and has appeared on many panels, protest stages and in the media.
There are more branches of Dziewuchy across Poland and in other places in Europe, but in Berlin our role is to raise awareness of the situation of women in Poland on the German stage, and to stand in solidarity with women in Germany who are fighting for self-determination and the right to choose – particularly in the fights against the paragraphs 218 and 219a.
We stand in solidarity with other Polish organisations and support the networks that help Polish women access abortions in Germany. We also stand in solidarity with other migrant groups in Berlin, and see the fight for women’s and LGBT rights as a fight across borders and languages.
Bündnis für sexuelle Selbstbestimmung
Fighting for a woman’s right to choose in Berlin and Germany
The Left Berlin
11/09/2020
On September 19, despite ongoing Corona restrictions, Christian fundamentalists will be travelling from all over to join the “March for Life” in Berlin – an anti-abortion protest was attended by several thousand participants in recent years. This year, as usual, loud and colourful counter-protests will be taking place in close proximity to the silent march.
The Bündnis für sexuelle Selbstbestimmung (Alliance for Sexual Self-Determination) is hosting a rally from 12-2pm at the Brandenburg Gate, near Pariser Platz, with a range of cultural acts and speakers on LGBTI and abortion rights in both English and German. The radical left group What the Fuck is also organising disruptive activities throughout the day.
Given that next year is not just an election year, 2021 also marks 150 years of organised resistance against the criminialisation of abortion in Germany, it’s an important moment for the burgeoning pro-choice movement, which has grown rapidly since the high-profile court case involving Kristina Hänel, a doctor who was charged 6,000 euros for providing basic information about abortion on her website. People are increasingly aware of the problems caused by the restrictive laws and are taking a stand against attempts by religious fundamentalists and far-right bigots to further restrict access to abortion and undermine LGBTI and women’s rights.
International Women Space was formed in December 2012 during the Refugee Movement’s occupation of the former Gerhart-Hauptmann School in Berlin-Kreuzberg. We created a Women’s Space there, which remained open until the summer of 2014. We worked to form a women’s front within the Refugee Movement that brings the fights against both racism and sexism together. After the eviction of the school, International Women Space continued working, with new members joining us. In 2017 we founded a registered association.
We are fed up with people speaking about us and not with us. Women’s resistance is often oppressed, and Women’s history hidden or ignored. We take on the responsibility to counteract this by documenting, making visible, and publicising our stories in our own words.
We organize politically to defend ourselves against the issues and attacks that we as women are facing: as refugee women, as migrant women and as non-migrant women. Sexism, racism, the violence of the asylum system and migration policies influence our lives. Our learning and our self-education is part of our emancipatory struggle. In our group, we stand in solidarity with each other and we support each other on an everyday basis.
We collaborate with feminist and anti-racist groups and have formed alliances in Berlin, in Europe, and beyond. Within our networks, we host workshops and organize demonstrations to bring our demands to the street.
Every year on the 8th of March – International Women’s Day – and on the 25th of November – International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women – we call out to join us in protest and say: every woman has the right to live a life free from violence! Every act of violence against women is an attack on our freedoms! We call for an end to isolation and deportation – and for freedom of movement for all! We welcome every woman that joins our fight. Our unity is our strength.
No woman is alone! Freedom of movement for all! Stop deportation! Freedom for all Women! Break isolation! Abolish Lagers!
Gegen Berufsverbot
Against the racist and sexist ban of the headscarf in public employment
The Left Berlin
28/08/2020
The coalition #GegenBerufsverbot (#AgainstOccupationalBan) is made up of organisations and individuals working to fight racism and sexism. It aims to educate the public about the discriminatory and unconstitutional effects Berlin’s so-called Neutrality Law has on religious and racial minorities, as well as womxn. Our ultimate goal is to overturn this law and any religious dress restrictions.
The Law on Article 29 of the Berlin Constitution came into force in 2005 and prohibits people who wear visible religious or ideological symbols or clothing from working in public schools or from being officials of the prison system or the police, and in a more moderate form from being educators in day-care centres.
Although this law is falsely dubbed the ‘neutrality’ law, it is anything but neutral. It disproportionally affects religious and racial minorities as well as womxn. They are denied access to work. Above all, it is Muslim womxn who wear a headscarf who are deprived of their free choice of profession. Men* from the Sikh community who wear a turban or from the Jewish community who wear a kippah are also affected.
Human dignity, protection against discrimination, free choice of profession and the freedom of religion are enshrined in the constitution and are human and civil rights cornerstones that Germany heralds as part and parcel of their democracy. However, the State of Berlin argues that religious minorities endanger state neutrality and – in education – school peace and must thus be banned from serving in these public sector jobs.
The law must be repealed and access to work, as well as all other areas of society, should be open to all, regardless of religion, ethnic origin, race, class, disability, sexual orientation, gender and all other backgrounds.