Women from all regions of the world took to the streets on March 8th, 2025, to kick off the 6th International Action of the World March of Women. Every five years, international actions are organized and strengthen the global connection between the struggles waged by women in their territories. The open ceremony of the 6th Action took place in a Sahrawi refugee camp in Tindouf, Algeria, attended by representatives from nine countries, as well as important Sahrawi leaders from the five Tindouf camps, zones occupied by Morocco, and the president of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
International actions are also a moment to revise the movement’s political platform. In 2025, the content of the action repositions the action areas of the World March of Women: feminist economy, fight against violence, defense of the common goods; and peace and demilitarization. The end of occupations in Western Sahara and Palestine is at the center of this action, the motto of which is “We march against wars and capitalism, we defend the sovereignty of peoples and good living.”
At the headquarters of the Sahrawi Women’s National Union, Yildiz Temürtürkan, the coordinator of the International Secretariat of the World March of Women, delivered a powerful speech about the key role Sahrawi women’s grassroots feminist struggle play in building internationalism. Read the full speech below.
The calendar of struggles for the 6th Action will remain intense throughout the year until its closing activities on October 17th. Over the course of this year, there will be simultaneous international activities, regional, national, and local actions, mobilizations, and feminist solidarity campaigns.
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What breaks the stone is not the power of water, but the continuity of drops. So, it is important to continue struggling. Today we have gone through a very historical moment: we have seen the growth of many social movements and feminists and women’s organizations. The World March of Women is getting bigger and increasing its power. It is due to the grassroots feminism that we belong to. One of them, leading our struggle, is the struggle of Sahrawi women.
Today, while we are here, Sahrawi women are not only the leaders and protagonists of their liberation struggle. They are leading international grassroots feminism as well. That’s to acknowledge their contribution to internationalism. Today, we are here from different countries. We have delegations from Brazil, Venezuela, Cuba, Tunisia, Algeria, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, and Turkey.
My country, Turkey, was born from a liberation war a hundred years ago when it was occupied by imperialist countries and the armies of European countries. We had the experience of a liberation war, and we know what it means to create a country from point zero. We say that a land is only a country if there are people to die for it. That makes our land a country, because we know what it means to die for a country.
We can feel the struggle here. It is not just a liberation struggle, but also the creation of life. You live together and you build a collective life that is an alternative to the oppressive capitalist system which today we are all suffering from. We, as anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist international feminists, greatly appreciate the struggle of Sahrawi women.
It is an important struggle to sustain life in these conditions. It is not just being part of a liberation war and not just suffering from oppression, being tortured, and being imprisoned. You are creating new life, organizing life in an alternative way in such hard conditions and showing us it is possible to sustain life in war conditions.
Today this is important because all wars are interrelated and interconnected, from Ukraine to Western Sahara, from Palestine to Syria. What does it mean for us? We need to connect and articulate our struggles for feminism, for the liberation of women, but also for the liberation of the peoples. We need to work in articulation and alliance with all the progressive forces of the world to defend life against necrocapitalism.
That’s why we are in a very historical moment. We are holding our World March of Women’s 6th International Action amid wars everywhere. That brings about a lot of challenges. We couldn’t bring half of our delegation here because of visa challenges, for example. We have been facing a lot of challenges in this struggle to build internationalism among our peoples. It’s not easy, but we are here today with you. It is important to express our solidarity from all over the world on the occasion of March 8th and to express our solidarity with Sahrawi women.
