Labour Party (EMEP), in its statement on 8 March International Working Women's Day, said: "It is not this state, not this power, not the bosses that keep us alive and standing! It is the working class, the labouring people and our sisters! Our hope is in the resilience of the women at the forefront of the class struggle yesterday at ETF and today at MATA Automotive! It is the struggle against violence against women and the male-dominated capitalist order. What adds strength to our power is the organised women's struggle that goes on strike for their rights in Europe and resists against the people and misogynist regimes from Afghanistan to Iran!

According to official figures, the number of people who lost their lives in the earthquakes centred in Maraş, which caused great destruction in 11 cities, has exceeded 46 thousand, and the whereabouts of thousands of people are unknown and cannot be found. The fate of unaccompanied and missing children is a mystery. Around 214 thousand buildings are either completely destroyed or too badly damaged to live in.

8 March International Working Women's Day is being celebrated under these conditions and Selma Gürkan, Deputy Chairperson of the Labour Party (EMEP), pointed out that the way out of this situation is possible through the organised struggle of the working class and working women. Emphasising that from the first minutes of the earthquake, people thought that all the means accumulated by the people would be mobilised, but this was not the case, Selma Gürkan reminded that there was a bourgeois political mind and a political power that preferred to save ATMs rather than lives from under the rubble and confiscated the aid sent by the people while citizens listened to the voices of their loved ones at the rubble.

The statement emphasised the following points:

THERE IS A GOVERNMENT THAT SELLS TENTS AND FOOD, DOES NOT PROTECT CHILDREN AND CONFISCATES AID

"We do not have a political power that ensures that the needs that make people human, such as shelter, hygiene, food, warmth and clothing, are met in the earthquake zone! We have a government that boasts of spending 20 years of earthquake taxes on double roads that collapsed in the earthquake, that tries to sell the destruction it created as a 'fate plan', that sells the tents and food supplies of the Red Crescent to associations at exorbitant prices, that manages the state like a company!

We do not have a Ministry of Family and Social Policies that immediately guarantees the physical and mental safety of children! We have a ministry that assumes that hundreds of missing children are in health institutions, a religiously abusive Diyanet that issues a fatwa that adopted children can be married, and that does not even provide shrouds for the missing children despite having a large budget!

There is no President who rains aid from west to east, from north to south, encouraging and organising people to brotherhood, peace and solidarity! There is a 'one man' who oppresses the democracy forces working with the people for the people in the region where he has declared a state of emergency with detentions and arrests, seizes their warehouses, attempts to stop the flow of news and information with social media restrictions, and insults the people who cry out and reproach him as "Unmannerly, immoral, dishonest, bastard!"!"

WE ARE FACED WITH BOSSES WHO DO NOT ALLOW WORKERS TO WORK AND LET THEM INTO DAMAGED BUILDINGS

We are not dealing with bosses who pile up construction machinery in the earthquake zone to save lives, who turn the wheels for the needs of earthquake victims for once, who give unpaid leave to survivors by saying 'You have sweated for me all this time'! There are bosses who called workers, even pregnant women, to production on the second day of the earthquake, who sacrificed workers to save goods from collapsed factory buildings, who locked the factory doors on workers during the earthquake! There are companies that steal millions of dollars from the public coffers one night under the guise of 'donations' and the next morning under the guise of tax cuts!

WE ARE FACED WITH A GOVERNMENT THAT DOES NOT EVEN INCLUDE MENSTRUAL PADS IN THE LIST OF URGENT NEEDS

Yes, the People's Alliance, the One Man rule and the forces of capital are standing right in front of us! They are one heart! They will come and knock on our doors again with their hypocrisy and anti-people, they will ask for votes again in the upcoming elections. We will not forget the brutality, hypocrisy, anti-people and misogyny revealed in the earthquake.
Because we know! They are the ones who do not give tents to women because 'You are on your own', who do not even include menstrual pads, the most natural basic need of women, in their list of emergency needs, who force women to collect water leaking from burst pipes in pots. They are right against millions of women!

NEXT TO US ARE WORKERS DIGGING THROUGH THE RUBBLE, LABOURING WOMEN WHO SHARE HALF OF WHAT THEY HAVE WITHOUT THINKING

"We have seen once again; there are those who stand with us as well as those who stand against us! There are mine workers digging through the rubble, construction workers cutting rebar, industrial workers making stoves from barrels! There are labouring women standing to our right and left, right next to us, sharing half of what they have without a second thought! There are young women who were thrown out of dormitories and left homeless by the government, who, despite all that they have been through, got organised and ran to their sisters after they got over the initial shock! There are thousands of women who organise the unique needs of women who are not even traced in the lists of official institutions, who organise psycho-social support to heal the wounds of women, who build playgrounds for children to overcome the earthquake trauma with the least damage, who set up Sky Tents, and their glorious solidarity!"

IT IS THE WORKING PEOPLE AND OUR SISTERHOOD THAT KEEPS US ALIVE

"It is not this state, not this government, not the bosses that keep us alive, alive and standing! It is the working class, the labouring people and our sisters! Our hope is in the resilience of the women at the forefront of the class struggle yesterday at ETF and today at MATA Automotive! It is the struggle against violence against women and the male-dominated capitalist order. What gives us strength is the organised women's struggle that goes on strike for their rights in Europe, that resists against anti-people and misogynist regimes from Afghanistan to Iran!

We have no doubt; together we will grow this solidarity that sustains us, we will change our country and the world with the organised struggle of the working class and working women!" (EVRENSEL DAILY)