Today, we commemorate International Women’s Day amid an increasingly horrific global situation, with the ongoing wars escalating, especially in the West Asia region. Without the slightest respect, the war-mongering US President Donald J. Trump attacked Iran in the middle of the holy month of Ramadhan, when tens of millions of Iranians and billions of Muslims around the world were observing fasting. Under the guise of ‘protection and security,’ the combined attacks of US imperialist and Zionist Israel are leading to a domino effect of devastation, destruction and death. Militarism, occupation, and geopolitical rivalry among imperialist powers have turned entire communities into battlefields.
The imperialist wars waged by the US and its cronies have a profound political and economic impacts. Not only do they result in the displacement of women and children, but they also subject them to immense violence, exploitation, poverty and hunger. It is expected that turmoil in Arab states will lead to skyrocketing prices of oil and gas, which will in turn drive up the cost of basic necessities and increase production costs for small-scale industry and agriculture, especially in agrarian countries. This will further exacerbate the crisis faced by the oppressed and exploited peoples, especially in rural communities. In every intense crisis, the deprivation of the basic rights of women and children becomes even more severe. Crises also create fertile ground for various forms of extreme violence against women and children to flourish.
War is not separate from the economic and ecological crises we face today. Militarism and fascism go hand in hand with the aggressive control of land, water, and natural resources. Across the Global South, peasants, Indigenous peoples, and rural communities face intensified land grabbing, extractive projects, and repression. Globally, about two-thirds of deaths in armed conflicts occur in rural areas, where fighting often destroys crops, livestock, and rural livelihoods, placing severe burdens on rural women who must sustain families and food production amid displacement and insecurity. Under these conditions, women, especially rural women, bear the heaviest burden of sustaining families and communities.
Across the region, these crises are felt most sharply in the countryside. Rural women continue to face the systematic erasure of their roles in agriculture and food production. Despite being central to planting, cultivating, harvesting, and preserving seeds, their labor remains invisible and unrecognized. Land ownership remains concentrated in the hands of corporations and landlords, while state policies continue to facilitate plantation expansion, mining, and large-scale agribusiness that displace peasant communities.
Women farmers are therefore not only food producers but also front-line defenders of land, water, and life. Yet they are denied dignity, recognition, and political visibility. Their unpaid care work continues to expand as economic hardship deepens, environmental destruction worsens, and state support for rural livelihoods declines.
On this International Women’s Day 2026, ARWC raises the call for dignity, recognition, and political visibility for rural women and agricultural workers. Rural women must rise not only as victims of crisis, but more importantly as political actors shaping the future of our societies.
Women farmers feed the world. Without us, there is no food sovereignty, no rural economy, and no sustainable future. Recognizing women farmers means acknowledging our knowledge, labor, and leadership in defending land and seeds from corporate control. It also means ensuring our participation in decision-making processes that determine the future of agriculture, food systems, and rural development.
At the same time, we must confront the broader systems that perpetuate women’s oppression. Imperialism, feudal land relations, and bureaucratic capitalism continue to exploit women’s labor while concentrating wealth and power in the hands of a few. These systems deepen inequality and enable the expansion of militarism and authoritarianism that suppress people’s resistance.
The Asian Rural Women’s Coalition (ARWC) therefore calls on women across Asia: peasants and fishers, agricultural workers, rural youth, pastoralists and advocates to strengthen our solidarity and collective struggle. Women’s liberation cannot be separated from the struggle for genuine land reform, economic justice, national sovereignty, and genuine democracy.
ARWC expresses solidarity and sympathy with women and children who are victims of wars of aggression and imperialist intervention in Iran, Palestine, and other countries; with the victims of Trump’s fascist and racist policies and with the women suffering from extreme oppression and exploitation, particularly in the semi-colonial and semi-feudal countries and territories. Despite these dark times, rural women continue to see hope in our collective actions against imperialist plunder, colonial occupation and fascist regimes. We rise together, united in our vision for a world without war and hunger, and for a world where there is genuine development, and peace and justice!
Down with imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucratic capitalism!
Long live international solidarity!
Reference: ARWC Secretariat, arwc-secretariat@asianruralwomen.net
