Mera Jism, Meri Marzi, Meri Mehnat, Meri Marzi

Our labour continues as we invest our hearts, minds and bodies into taking care of our societies

Five years ago we started chanting ‘Mera Jism, Meri Marzi’. This year, we take our naara further by highlighting and demanding justice for our mehnat and our mazdoori, and we claim ‘Mera Jism, Meri Mehnat, Meri Marzi’.

As women (cis or trans), khwajasaras, transmen and non-binary persons, we labour within homes, in factories, on the streets, as artisans, as home-based workers, as healthcare professionals and as domestic workers. However, our labour does not end here. Our labour continues as we invest our hearts, minds and bodies into taking care of the societies we live in and sustain. Our labour is involved in the production and provision of food. It is our labour that takes care of the elderly, when we socialise and raise children, or when we take care of our muhallas and nurture our communities. It is our labour when we cut the wheat for harvest and when we travel miles down the road to bring water for our families.

The economic system pays — but poorly, thanks to the gender wage gap — our ‘formal’ labour because it is often seen as productive while the huge amounts of work we do for our families and communities is left unacknowledged, treated as free, and taken for granted.

The work of ‘caretaking’ has been feminised and these gendered roles are forced upon us since our childhood. Interestingly, we are subjected to (occasional) glorification in our homes and in the media for being ‘naturally caring’ beings when we follow suit. This gets leveraged to continue the cycle of exploitation that patriarchy and capitalism collectively clamp us into. We are strictly boxed as unpaid labourers who don’t demand, nor require, any compensation.

If we try to live and breathe a little, we are discarded, thrown down from this pedestal, shunned, and trapped into a guilt so insidious that it often consumes the entirety of our beings. This simply for wanting dou pal ka sukoon.

This is the kind of invisible exploitation that patriarchy reinforces through enforcing roles in families, helping to ensure our subservience to our oppressors. From our childhood we are raised into believing in the concept of the good wife/good partner, who is expected to take care of others and not demand anything in return. If we simply want a break, or if we refuse, we are often shamed or threatened with violence. Consequently, we frequently suffer from physical, psychological and emotional abuse — as a result of something that we didn’t choose in the first place.

Moreover, sexual abuse also enters the equation with marital rape being a reality that countless of us undergo because we’re not allowed the power to refuse or say no.

When some of us marry, this particular zimmaydari (responsibility) is further reinforced, now as part of a legal contract. The burden of not only nurturing but of reforming families is placed upon us. You will often hear: shaadi karado, mard theek hojayega or usko uss ki biwi theek kardeygi.

We are expected to surrender ourselves, to become vessels for the pain of others and provide emotional comfort to our husbands, brothers, partners and families. We are the ones who are expected to bring families together; on the other hand, the so called izzat or the honour of our families is thrust upon us. In case of divorce, we are left with nothing for all the labour we have provided to maintain our homes and society.

So this year, we stand shoulder to shoulder, in the streets and say: Hamari Mazdoori, Hamara Haq i.e. our labour is ours. We claim the right to refuse this labour, and to demand acceptance and compensation for all our work.

We demand that the state must provide a monthly stipend as social security to all women (cis or trans), the khwajasara community, transmen, and non-binary people as social security for our care labour.

We believe that child welfare is the responsibility of the state, hence we demand that the state prioritise child welfare, end child labour, child trafficking and bonded labor.

We demand that the government provide protection centres and child support. We further demand that all workers — whether working in factories, on farms and homesteads, in homes as domestic workers, or as sanitation workers — be given a living wage, based on access to safe housing, quality education and affordable healthcare for themselves and their families. As a first step, we demand immediate enforcement of the minimum wage across all sectors, and for all actors who refuse this to be fined under the law.

As always, our demands are intersectional and are derived from the lived realities of marginalised people across the board. From domestic and sanitation workers to people with disabilities, and from political workers to homemakers, everyone deserves equal access to ujrat, tahaffuz and sukoon, which is what our demands for this year reflect.

Much more can be said about the specifics of our requisitions and we’re sure that it will happen aplenty on the streets, in the media, and in homes, so excuse us for now because, unlike our detractors, we must get back to work — as we labour to put together our feminist revolutionary protest just a few hours from now.

8 March, phir se Aurat March!

 

The article is written by the organisers of Aurat March.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 8^th, 2022.

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