Our correspondent Belén de los Santos interviews Luiza Tonon from the Democratic Women Movement of Portugal, during the second day of the Anti-Fascist Youth & Students World Congress. teleSUR
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00:00We go now with Belén, our special omba in Caracas, for more details on everything that
00:05has been happening in this International World Youth and Student Anti-Fascist Congress.
00:11Hello studios, exactly.
00:14We continue here in Caracas as the Youth Anti-Fascist Congress is underway in the Venezuelan capital.
00:25And the delegations are here.
00:26This is the second day of the Congress.
00:29Some of the panels are already underway as the delegations from different parts of the
00:34world are discussing, debating, bringing their own experiences on very relevant topics to
00:42really, first of all, understand the world we are living in, and second, just share the
00:48different experiences from different territories and also think of a common agenda and common
00:54strategies to really tackle those challenges and think of the way in which a better future,
01:02a better world order can be built.
01:04And that is what is happening here in Caracas.
01:06The topics go from discussing the environmental crisis to discussing the possibilities of
01:13young and popular organizations around the world.
01:16And also, the women and gender topic is also one of the main pieces of debate.
01:23This has been for the past decades, of course, one of the most relevant topics, but in this
01:29case, it's being analyzed in an international and also an anti-capitalist perspective for
01:36the women's movement around the world.
01:38And we are now joined by Luisa Danon.
01:41She is from Portugal and she is from the Democratic Women Movement from Portugal.
01:46So, first of all, welcome, Luisa.
01:48Thank you for joining us here in Tell Us Your English.
01:52It's a pleasure for us to have you here.
01:55And I would first like to ask you about your first impressions.
01:59It's your first time in Venezuela, right?
02:01Yes, it's my first time in Venezuela.
02:03I arrived here this week and I've been finding it wonderful, wonderful, wonderful people,
02:11very sympathetic, very warm and receptive.
02:14And also, it's very important to say that it has nothing to do with what has been told
02:19in my country, in Portugal.
02:21People tell many lies about Venezuela, that it's too violent here and people don't have anything.
02:29And I've not seen that at all.
02:31I've just been loving it.
02:33It's a beautiful city.
02:34It's a great opportunity to meet more people and to see the resistance, the political culture
02:39here from Venezuela, that it's a big example to us in Portugal.
02:44Right.
02:45And of course, the question about the media campaign against the sovereign countries around
02:52the world is one of the key topics here as well, because of course, that is the impression
02:57from many of the delegates that are visiting, not only Venezuela, but sometimes Latin America
03:02for the first time, moving out of their own countries for the first time.
03:06So it's really good to know the in-person experience from this country on the one hand.
03:12Also, I imagine that you've been talking to delegates from all over the world and asking
03:17them about their experiences, what is going on in their countries.
03:20So it's a very big learning process.
03:23And I would like to ask you, yesterday was the first day of discussions, of panels.
03:29You come from a women's movement in Portugal.
03:33So what was that like in the exchange of ideas?
03:36What were some of the main topics in that area?
03:40How was the exchange of visions with delegates from all over the world?
03:44What's your perspective?
03:46I would say it has been also fantastic.
03:49Since arriving here, I've been talking every time to people from all the continents.
03:53And as I'm from the women's movement, I always ask about the women and the situation in their
03:58countries.
03:59But here, yesterday, it was very important that we had a whole discussion dedicated only
04:04to gender and women.
04:06And I was invited there to be talking about the experience of my country and my movement.
04:12That was great.
04:13But it was even better to listen to many people from Latin America, many women from Venezuela
04:18as well, and other countries in the world, to tell their experiences.
04:22Also, the struggle and the rights for women in all these countries.
04:28So it was very rich.
04:30We stayed almost three hours there, just exchanging experiences.
04:33And it has been great.
04:35I feel like even more strong now to my struggles in my country.
04:39And surely they feel the same to their countries.
04:42And it's very important to be solidary, to strengthen this solidarity towards all the
04:47women of the world.
04:49We learned very much, and it's great.
04:51Well, that is really amazing to hear and to see.
04:55We see people exchanging experiences.
04:57We see people exchanging their flags, their fighting symbols.
05:02And that is really, it can appear a superficial thing, but I think that it speaks to really
05:09the exchange and the solidarity that is being built with someone that you are talking with,
05:14sharing an experience.
05:15So it's really good.
05:17And I would like to end by asking you, what is the situation in Portugal in terms of the
05:23women's movement?
05:25What are your key struggles?
05:27And have you been able to share and learn from other experiences during this congress?
05:32Sure.
05:33We see that Portugal has lived 48 years under a fascist dictatorship, as many Latin American
05:41countries.
05:42And that dictatorship was very misogynist and hated women.
05:47Women had way lower rights than men.
05:49And just because many women were in the anti-fascist struggle, and together with all the people,
05:55all the working class, they made a popular social revolution in 1974.
05:59And after that, things changed a lot.
06:02What proves, we think, that the social organization of the working class can really change the
06:09world.
06:10But now, we live in a capitalist country, that's Portugal.
06:13It's one of the poorest countries in Europe, so we have many struggles due to the low wages.
06:19Women get less paid and usually are in lower paid professions.
06:24And we fight a lot in some rights, that women can be mothers if they want.
06:30And this should not be a heavy thing.
06:33They should have free public education for babies.
06:36And this doesn't happen right now in our country.
06:39It's a struggle to us to have free and public service to children care in our country.
06:48We are always in the streets talking to our women to be strong in the trade unions, to
06:55fight for bigger wages, to have also better times of work, because some women do work
07:01a lot, have two or three jobs, and this is too much.
07:05We see that women suffer a lot.
07:07And we also are in the struggle against violence against women, because Portugal is overall
07:13a very safe country, but the most reported crime is domestic violence.
07:19So, we have to tell women to be aware of that and don't fear to denounce that.
07:24So, it's one of our struggles.
07:27And mainly now, we say a lot about anti-imperialism, to support Palestine, to support Cuba, to
07:33support Venezuela, and women to stand with peace against all the wars, against all the
07:38violence.
07:39These are also very important to us.
07:41And that's why it's very important to us to be here.
07:44Thank you very much.
07:45Thank you, Luisa.
07:46It's our pleasure to have you, truly.
07:49That was Luisa, our comrade from Portugal, bringing some of the information and reality
07:55in the women's movement in that country.
07:58And really, that is just a little bit of what this Congress is all about.
08:02Not only the topics that are being discussed, but also learning from the reality in each
08:08country, because one of the keys in the international attempt to unite the different movements
08:15from different countries has to do with learning about what's going on and also finding that
08:20there's a lot of common ground, that there's a lot of shared history, even with people
08:25from far, far away in the world.
08:28And that is what is happening.
08:29The exchanges are being made.
08:31And a lot of comrades are realizing that the same struggles are being fought in different
08:37territories, and that means that there's a lot of people for them to learn from, and
08:43also a lot of road to walk together.
08:47So that is what is happening here.
08:49We will continue to bring you all the information from the Anti-Fascist Youth Congress in Caracas.
08:54Now we go back to you.