Women’s Struggle for Justice in the Shadow of War
Presentation of DOIW representative at the celebration of 8th March in London.
The International Women’s Day emerged out of the struggle of women workers as the most intensely exploited section of the working class. The threat that working class women face today is more acute than before, as wars rage in the world, including the very recent ‘war of choice’ started by US and Israel. For the first time since World War II, we are seeing the hegemony of a rabid capitalist class, led by Trump, representing US billionaires and their interests, imposing its will on the world population with little effective state challenge.
The Trump administration and the apartheid state of Israel buoyed by the damage they inflicted on Iran in their assault in June 2025, started a joint military assault on Iran on 28th February. The assassination of Khamene’i, the regime’s supreme religious leader, along with around 50 of the top leadership of the Islamic Republic, took place while US and Iranian officials were supposedly in negotiations.
The regime has put the death toll in Iran at 1200 (by day 6). On the very first day, 168 people were killed in a Girls’ School in Minab in the Southern province of Hormozgan, most of them children. The attack on a sports hall in the city of Lamerd in Fars Province, killed 20 girls, from the basketball teams, and wounded at least 100. There are reports of the double-tap tactic that targets emergency services and those who rush to assist the injured following the first strike.
The attacks have impacted around 163 cities across 24 provinces[i], including the capital Tehran and other major cities such as Isfahan and Tabriz. Historic sites have not been spared. Those who cannot afford to leave, remain, exposed to the threat from US and Israel’s munitions. The people of Iran are between two deadly options, the dictatorial regime that has the blood of thousands of Iranians on its hands, and the genocidal, racist and fascist regimes of Netanyahu and Trump.
With intensified attacks targeting the regime’s forces in Kurdistan, the disintegration of Iran, which is composed of many ethnicities and national groups, is clearly on the minds of the aggressors. For now, Trump seems to be hoping for an outcome like Venezuela where we see the US making new lucrative deals on oil and gold. Trump has declared that he is looking for someone from within the regime to take over, acknowledging without any irony, that he realises that they have killed some of those figures already.
Women have suffered doubly under the Islamic Republic which set about curtailing women’s and human rights not long after the 1979 Revolution. Among the regime’s destructive laws were: the reduction of working hours for married women in various industries, compulsory hejab in the workplace and in public spaces, lower pay for women workers than men, segregation in education and healthو as well as restrictions on women in cultural venues, destructive anti-women bias in the family law, the legalisation of child marriage, and refusal to outlaw domestic violence against women.
The women of Iran have fought courageously against these misogynistic laws. They have led campaigns such as ‘no to femicide’ and pressed for an end to child marriage and to child labour. Mothers for Justice have kept pressing for justice for their loved ones who were executed without due process. Women have also led momentous protests such as the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement in 2022- 2023, which became a turning point in the popular movement of our country against the dictatorship.
The lives of the women and men who have been languishing in prisons for years, alongside the detainees from the January protests are in danger. US, Israel and Iran are run by self-serving and corrupt leaders who will stop at no crime to ensure their own survival. We remember how dangerous a wounded regime can be. We remember the mass slaughter of political prisoners after the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988. The demand to ensure that political prisoners are kept safe from harm is entwined with our call for an end to the war.
Wars are one of the most effective tools in the armoury of imperialists for frustrating people’s movements for progressive change. The struggle for peace and against war is a fundamental part of our struggle for freedom and social justice. The future of Iran must be determined by the women and men of Iran, without foreign interference.
We say no to war, no to executions, and call for the freedom of political prisoners in Iran.
[i] https://hengaw.net/en/reports-and-statistics-1/2026/03/article-3 [Accessed 06/03/2026]
