As Europe grapples with an aging population and declining birth rates, migrant women have become indispensable to the care work industry; filling critical gaps in caregiving roles. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), there are approximately 169 million international migrant workers worldwide, with nearly 80% of women in this workforce employed in the services sector, including care work. 

The Aurat March’s expressions of solidarity, and the deliberate centering of womxn who are left most vulnerable in the current system, has led to a radical reimagining of what third world feminist politics can look like and what it can, and should, lead to: emancipation.

The color purple took over the main streets of Madrid. Thousands of women and allies holding up signs were waiting for the demonstration to begin. I have never seen so many people gathered together – people from all ages and backgrounds prepared for this rally to begin.

By Ajok Deng

In the Madrid neighborhood of Lavapiés, groups such as Mujeres Libres (Free Women) join anonymous street artists in expressing defiant resistance to the structures of patriarchy and the gendered violence that it generates. As part of our Weaving the Streets project, reporter Ajok Deng describes what she has been seeing on the walls, and in the streets, of Lavapiés.