On Monday 8 August 2022, over 50 working-class women from across the Cape Flats will picket at Constantia Circle, a site of privilege and food security, against the invisible violences of hunger, poverty, unemployment and neglect from government and big business who export and waste tons while our communities go hungry.
We are a collective of working-class women from across the Western Cape, Cape Flats – represented by Security & Safety Patrol Delft; Housing Assembly; Bonteheuwel Development Forum; Hope for the Future and the Food Sovereignty Campaign. We as a collective gather twice a month to discuss and work through issues that face us as women, and the communities we serve.
#PatrickMustFall
At the heart of all these issues is Patrick.
Patrick is the reason behind gender-based violence. Patrick exploits working class women. Patrick makes it so that we are unemployed. Patrick refuses to give us land to grow our own food. Patrick harms the girl child. Patrick benefits from race and gender inequality. Patrick doesn’t care that with no food we cannot eat, and if we cannot eat our families and communities get sick.
Patrick is the name our group has organically come to use to refer to the patriarchy – the embodiment all the violences and injustices we face as women, that cannot be separated from capitalism and the exploitation of the working class. Patrick and all he represents, is the enemy of women.
Our Picket
Our picket on 8 August 2022 at 7am at Constantia Circle (Cnr of Ladies Mile and Spaanschemat River Road) draws focus to the violence of food injustice in our communities and how it impacts women in particular. At this picket we raise our voices to the struggles we face and the need for equality, justice and access to dignity. Food is increasingly expensive; without jobs we cannot access nutritious food; without food we cannot be healthy; without health we cannot survive. On top of the daily physical attacks we face from Patrick, Patrick also ensures we are not able to eat or feed our families.
Our Demands
• Land and resources be made freely available in communities so that communities may start their own food gardens to put power back in community hands and ease the food crisis
• Put people before profits. End policies that prioritise the exporting of nutritious foods, while degrading and unhealthy foods are the only affordable options for working class communities
• Employment for young and middle-aged women so we are able to feed our families and communities
• Department of Education to bring back agricultural studies into the formal curriculum so our children and co
• Department of Education to bring back agricultural studies into the formal curriculum so our children and communities can grow their own nutritious food.
Contact Details for comment:
Salaama Abrahams – 073 5547 444
Kashiefa Achmat – 073 182 7862
Charmaine Jacobs – 068 409 4519
The Women’s Legal Centre director, Seehaam Samaai will also be joining the protest action. Read the full statement here.