“Women are having caesarean sections, while staying in tents, expected to get up, look after their children and family and in many cases flee to safety, within hours and without medication.”
Hilary Schan, Momentum Co-Chair, addressed the Labour & Palestine “Women for Palestine” rally in the run-up to International Women’s Day. You can read a published version of her speech or watch the event below:
International Women’s Day always feels like such an important moment to come together as women and recognise the collective challenges we continue to face and the disproportionate impact of structural inequality on us all as women. This year however, feels even more important as an event of collective international solidarity, as we see what is happening to women in Gaza on a daily basis.
Once again, the impact of this brutal war is disproportionately affecting women, and children. Of the more than 30k Palestinians killed so far, the UN estimates 70% are women and children, and nearly 1 million women and girls have been displaced. Women, children and newborns in Gaza are disproportionately bearing the burden both as casualties and in reduced access to health services.
Women are having caesarean sections, while staying in tents, expected to get up, look after their children and family and in many cases flee to safety, within hours and without medication. There are stories of women refusing to eat or drink in pregnancy simply to avoid needing the toilet. There has been a huge increase in sexual assault and harassment due to lack of safe areas and there is no reporting infrastructure left. Women and girls are using rags for sanitary products, resulting in infections, as they are also unable to wash effectively.
These are truly unimaginable horrors to us in the UK and I’m sure we have all had conversations with people who say they don’t watch the news anymore because it’s “too depressing” or they “feel hopeless”, but to look away is complicity. Silence is violence. These women are heroes and as primary caregivers, they will bear the brunt of the intergenerational trauma that will exist for years to come.
In the British media, we are already seeing how the horrors in Gaza are falling down the agenda in favour of the culture war taking place in British politics. The Tory government just this week have been considering a ban on MPs and Councillors having involvement with organisations such as the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. This is of course convenient not just to escalate the view that those calling for peace are somehow terrorists, but to take the headlines away from what is really happening on the ground in Palestine. As a Labour councillor, I will say categorically that I will not be cowed by this and will continue to speak out, to march and to fight.
Two weeks ago in Worthing where I’m a councillor, we were proud to receive a deputation from our local Parents for Peace group, led by an amazing group of local women, asking us to back a motion for an immediate ceasefire. Such was the power of the spokeswoman’s speech, the motion passed unanimously, including the Tory opposition. Just one example from across the nation and world, of women campaigning and standing with the women and people of Palestine.
So this International Women’s Day, it is incumbent on all of us to make the voices of Palestinian women heard – to share their stories and ensure that people continue to take to the streets at every opportunity, to fight for an immediate ceasefire and for peace.
At Momentum we have been consistently pressuring the Labour Party leadership on this, including our lobbying tool which over 5,000 people have used, to contact Labour MPs and the leadership to push them to back an immediate ceasefire. We are pleased that the position has shifted in the way that it has, however, it should never have taken this long and it is still not an unequivocal position that calls for a full, immediate and permanent ceasefire and it is clear that the Labour Party leadership are still unwilling to stand up to the Israeli government and insist that they stop their brutal massacre of the Palestinian people.
Just last week in the Rochdale by-election, we have seen how much the Party has underestimated the strength of feeling about Gaza amongst the public and polling shows that this is reflected across the Muslim population of the UK, amongst whom Labour have completely lost confidence and support. No nationwide polling can legislate for candidates standing in support of Palestine and as we saw in Rochdale, the Labour Party ignore this at their peril.
So as we draw nearer to a General Election, we mustn’t allow the real story of Gaza to be dwarfed by Labour’s factional games or the culture war rhetoric of the Tories. And we must expose the hypocrisy of the Labour Party when they suspend councillors, as happened in Lambeth last week, including Martin Abrams, Momentum NCG member and Jewish councillor. They are now willing to use the greatest humanitarian catastrophe of our time as a vehicle to further their political project. They are abhorrent.
This International Women’s Day let’s use our collective strength to fight back and be the voice of those that need us and continue to fight for an immediate and permanent ceasefire and liberation for Palestine.
- This article is a published version of the speech given by Hilary Schan during Labour & Palestine’s ‘Women for Palestine‘ rally held in the run-up to International Women’s Day 2024. You can watch back the event on YouTube or listen back on the Arise Festival podcast.
- Hilary Schan is the Co-Chair of Momentum. You can follow her on Twitter/X here.
- You can follow Momentum on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
