The Aurat March 2023 tradition will be six years old this year on International women’s day. The Aurat March 2023 is a demand for gender-based human rights. participants demand the right to public space. When they chant the infamous slogan, Mera Jism Meri Marzi, they are not glorifying promiscuity.
Save The Date
This year, the organizers have announced the official date in a post on Twitter, “Aurat March Karachi will be held on March 12, 2023 this year. We continue to stand in complete solidarity with the Aurat Marches in Hyderabad, Lahore, Islamabad and Multan that will be held on March 8, 2023,” read the caption.
✨ IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT ✨
Aurat March Karachi will be held on 12th March this year. We continue to stand in complete solidarity with the Aurat Marches in Hyderabad, Lahore, Islamabad and Multan that will be held on 8th March.#RiyasatJawabDouBhookKaHisaabDou #AuratMarch2023 pic.twitter.com/VkTS1YqjtL
— Aurat March – عورت مارچ (@AuratMarchKHI) February 28, 2023
They explained their reasons for the delay. “On account of March 8 being a weekday, we have decided to hold Aurat March in Karachi on Sunday, March 12 instead so that the working class communities we work with do not have to experience the distress of losing out on a day of wages. The march will be held with all its fire and energy on the March 12, 2023.”
Aurat March Agenda 2023
This year women will be marching for “our hunger, social security, a living wage, an end to bonded labour, rehabilitation of flood victims, an end to mob violence, an end to domestic violence, the Transgender Persons Protection Act 2018 and to end forced conversions.”
The 2022 floods devastated Sindh and parts of Balochistan, Punjab and KP. In other rural and urban areas, continually increasing food prices and petrol hikes have halted the lives of the working class. As families starve, the state and the military continue to spend on superfluous luxuries such as golf courses, elite housing societies, duplicate and redundant federal & provincial ministries, and the lavish lifestyles of civilian & military officials.
We suffer from cruel, escalating patriarchal violence on our bodies — & it often starts from what is supposed to be the 'safety' of our homes…#RiyasatJawabDouZulmKaHisaabDou#AuratMarch2023
Artwork by @nadiyaabatool pic.twitter.com/JL7nacKnjO
— Aurat March – عورت مارچ (@AuratMarchKHI) February 28, 2023
This hunger and poverty affects all of us but it disproportionately affects cisgender and transgender women, the khawajasira community, trans men, and non-binary persons. Our bodies are not only made to starve but also face escalating violence. Whether it is sexual and physical violence in flood camps, increasing domestic violence of all kinds in the pseudo-safety our homes, or mob violence towards religious minorities and the trans community, gut wrenching abuse is happening as we speak, in front of our very eyes. And the state, as always, is silent in fact, complicit in perpetrating it.
This Aurat March 2023, we demand for all this to stop: we demand justice, the right to life, and with our rage, we demand for our these atrocities on our existence to end.