. WOMEN’S EQUALITY .
An article from Prensa Latina
Thousands of women marched again this Monday [March 9] in the capital , Santiago, and other cities of Chile, as part of a general strike called by the 8M Coordination and supported by social and student organizations.
A group of Indigenous woman demonstrate during a march in Santiago on International Women’s Day [Martin Bernetti/AFP]
In Santiago, the women concentrated at midday in the emblematic Plaza de la Dignidad from where they later left to demonstrate along the southern path of the Alameda on a route that ended at the Plaza Los Heroes, passing in front of the Palacio de La Moneda.
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Although without the massiveness of Sunday’s huge demonstration, which concentrated around one million people, the thousands of participants on this Labor Monday did clamor with equal force for social change in a macho and patriarchal society, and equal rights and opportunities.
During the march, they denounced the injustices they are victims of, since Chilean women receive more than 20 percent less salary than men for equal work, as well as lower pensions, and instead must pay more to access bank loans, health insurance and pension insurance, just to cite a few examples.
Closely guarded by a strong police contingent with armored water and gas throwers, the protesters also chanted slogans demanding the resignation of President Sebastian Piñera and in favor of the option to approve a new constitution in the plebiscite called for April.
Many also expressed in posters and slogans the need to extend gender parity to other areas of the country’s institutions and not only to the constituent convention that will draft the new constitution in case the Apruebo option wins.