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Gonaïves
Women Celebrate International Women Day
March 8, 2005 – (MINUSTAH Press Release) About
60 women gathered this morning in the center of Gonaïves to
celebrate the International Women Day. They formed a joyful parade,
like a street carnival, and chanted slogans and danced in the streets
for more than two hours. In the front line some of them carried
a bouquet of plastic flowers.
Vehicles of United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH)
followed the procession closely, taking care of the security with
mixed patrols of Haitian National Police (HNP), CivPols, and soldiers
of the Argentinean Battalion. A female HNP also acted as interpreter.
The procession crossed the city busiest main arteries, where hundreds
of sidewalk vendors, most women, would cheer and applaud them. By
noon, children and teenagers leaving school in their colorful uniforms
also joined the celebration.
The parade became silent when it reached a small garden with a stone
monument, where the flowers were placed. Carved in the stone, these
words: «Here rests Mrs. Jean Jacques Dessalines - if you want
to know what this woman was, consult the first pages of our History».
One of the coordinators of the event, Annessie Claude, director
of Social Affairs in Gonaïves, said that Madame Dessalines
was the first feminist in the history of Haiti, the very first woman
to understand the “suffering and humiliations of poor women”
in her country: “She is our inspiration”.
Marie Rene’e Joseph, who represented a few women’s organizations
in the event, said that now, “more than ever, women have to
get jobs, have to participate in the reconstruction of our country”.
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For additional information concerning the celebration of International
Women Day by Gonaïves Women, please contact Sonia Nolasco,
the MINUSTAH Regional Information Officer in Gonaïves. E-mail:
nolasco@un.org, Mobile: (509)
427 77 13
From: http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/minustah/press.html
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