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print versionAURAT MARCH KARACHI
Statement on International Women’s Day, 8 March 2025
It was on 8th March 2018 when Aurat March started in Karachi as well as other major cities across the country. We have been marching for seven years; we have shaken the patriarchal status quo in Pakistan; and we are now a well-known entity.
This important annual event has not only increased in momentum but it has also created a movement, a tehreek demanding freedom and calling for upholding the rights of women and all oppressed people and communities. 8th March 2025 marks the 8th year of Aurat March.
Why do we march? We march because we want socioeconomic and political change of the current system, and an end to all forms of patriarchal discrimination, gender-based violence, inequality and injustice.
Who are we? We are cross-class, cross-ethnic, intersectional feminists – we are the religious minorities, we are the gender minorities, we are the workers in factories and in homes, we are unpaid agricultural and livestock workers, we are fisherfolk – we are the oppressed – but we are the defiant ones and our defiance is growing every day.
We are marking 8th March, International Women’s Day this year by informing the public that today we are not marching. This year our Aurat March will be held in the month of May.
May is very important because it is the month to celebrate Labour Day (Workers Day) on 1st May. Women are the foremost workers in any society and community. Without women’s labour, without women’s work there would be no society. Thus every day is Women’s Day.
May also celebrates Mothers around the world, including Pakistan.
We are thus announcing that Aurat March 2025 will be held on Sunday 11th May in Karachi. We hope everyone in Karachi and beyond will join us.
Today, on International Women’s Day, we stand in solidarity with all our sisters in Pakistan as well as with our international sisters – especially the brave women of Balochistan and Parachinar (Kurram); and those whose loved ones are still enforced disappeared; and the struggling women of Palestine, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Kashmir. We believe that their and our struggle is the same – against patriarchy, war, brutality, gender-based violence, poverty – in relation to women’s struggle for identity, freedom, justice and equality.
Aurat March,
Karachi, 2025
