Between discourse and reality: 8M in Venezuela

Women take part in an autonomous march in Caracas on March 8, 2025. Photo © Cacica Honta.

Opinion • Colectiva Mujeres, Cuerpos y Territorios, Venezuela (Mucyt) • April 3, 2025 • Leer en castellano

On March 8, Marisela followed the instructions she was given. She dressed in pink and traveled from Miranda state to downtown Caracas to attend the official International Women's Day march. A member of the ruling party, she was in charge of one of the two buses that took 30 women to the event.

The government asked its supporters to wear pink for the 8M march this year. From the stage, Marisela watched other women march in purple and green; we were fewer than those in the official event. “It's so good that the ministry has its own distinctive color,” Marisela said in an interview.

The goal of the government-sanctioned marches, which were mostly organized by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), is to create and celebrate a hegemonic discourse and the appearance gender equality. This year, the slogan of the pro-government march was “Venezuela is a sovereign woman." But beyond the political parties and speeches, there is a vibrant, autonomous movement of women and sexual and gender dissidents who come together as a network to fight for an rights that have yet to be enshrined and others that are regularly violated.

The Ministry of Women's Affairs has been around for 16 of the 27 years that the Chavista movement has been in power in Venezuela. But their top-down displays of symbols and words have not changed the reality for women or dissidents on the ground. Abortion is illegal and, to this day, there is no official sex education for women and girls.

Instead, the government tries to undermine the feminist movement’s radicalism and marginalize the LGTBIQ+ community. All of this was apparent on March 8. Dealing with that usurpation is part of living in Venezuela. The government’s strict, binary vision of gender prioritizes the nuclear family and ignores other perspectives.

In spite of it all, diverse groups of independent women united on 8M and marched of their own accord. Among us were trade unionists, health and education workers, feminists and mothers of prisoners and detainees. Each had their demands written on their signs and in their hearts in their struggle to survive the economic, political and ecological crises that have long been underway in Venezuela.

The political context in Venezuela requires us to anonymize some of the names and details in this text to protect the identity of those who told us their stories. The narratives that we share are based on interviews and conversations that took place during the march and other activities in Caracas on March 8, 2025.

A crowd of women and supporters take part in an autonomous march in Caracas on March 8, 2025. Photo © Cacica Honta.

All out against violence

Crossing Plaza Venezuela and weaving through the people summoned by the state, there were many other faces: shopkeepers, folks browsing in stores, and women and dissidents who were demonstrating and commemorating International Working Women's Day.

Women voicing their solidarity with other struggles accompanied them. Many entered the Plaza Venezuela from Sabana Grande Boulevard. Among other things, they demanded rights long promised but never delivered: the right to work and to a decent wage, to essential services such as water, education and health, as well as the rights of prisoners.

Dani is from the city of Maracaibo, which is central to the country’s petroleum industry, but she’s lived in Caracas for about five years. Many moons ago, her work as a freelance designer and also gender violence inflicted upon her by her partner brought her to the capital with her son, where she set out to echar pa'lante [forge ahead], like so many single mothers.

Four years ago, Dani sued her abuser for physical and psychological violence, but her case has languished in Caracas courts. TheOrganic Law of the Rights of the Woman to a Life Without Violence, passed in 2007, identifies 25 categories of gender-based violence. But as Dani tried to explain what had happened to her to her family—and later to justices of the peace, police and prosecutors—she and her son were revictimized as they faced even more violence.

Hers is yet another case of persistent re-victimization, the kind that no one wants to experience. “No more family secrets, no more impunity.” That, Dani told us, is what motivated her to join the march. The mixing of her cries with many others and the hugs and smiles she received made her feel that she was being cared for. In the background, you could hear the chant: “The cops don't look after me, my friends do.”

Anaí is a retired nurse. She spent 35 years caring for others as a worker in the public health system. Today, she receives a monthly pension of 3.55 U.S. dollars. Her five daughters and sons decided to leave Venezuela nine years ago. One by one, following the 2017 crisis, they said their goodbyes. Some migrated on foot while the luckier ones, health professionals like her, left by air. 

From time to time, they send remittances that help cover the cost of food for her and the two granddaughters that she cares for. The basic cost of food for a family in Venezuela is… Just give us a moment, readers, because we need to set up our VPN so we can access the blocked web page, where a report from an independent organization was published that shows its cost, aha!... $721 a month. Anaí’s pension doesn’t even cover one percent of that (those of us who are still working aren’t faring much better). That's why she left her granddaughters with a neighbor, a fellow church member, to attend the march, where she carried a sign demanding livable wages and pensions.

Family members of political prisoners take place in the March 8, 2025 march in Caracas. Photo © Cacica Honta.

Rights under attack, advance of gender conservatism

In November 2024, a new law was published in the Official Gazette of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela limiting human rights work carried out by organizations that are not aligned with the government. The law is called the “Law for the Control, Regularization, Performance and Financing of Non-Governmental Organizations and Non-Profit Social Organizations."

One of those organizations helps Yenny in her gender transition as she barely scrapes by despite holding multiple jobs. As with the other NGOs, this one is in danger of being shut down, which makes Yenny sad. After a session with one of the organization’s therapists, Yenny decided to join the 8M march in Caracas. She understands that you have to make your presence known to be acknowledged and her coworkers support her. She participated in the protest despite many obstacles, including the loss of a day's pay.

Marches in Caracas have changed since the elections last July. Surveillance is more egregious and authorities are shutting down spaces for grassroots organizing. During the month of protests that followed the elections, Lucrecia's son, who is autistic, found himself among over 2,000 detainees. A man in civilian clothes tricked him by promising to give him some shoes if he went along with him. He never came back.

That month, Lucrecia had planned to return to the land that her grandfather left them. She wanted to continue her family’s small farming tradition, but the military seized her land as part of its consolidation of major land holdings. Her mother was threatened and fled, and Lucrecia had to rent a place in Caracas near the prison where her son is being held. Today, her mother isn’t being cared for, and Lucrecia has to pay guards to bring food to her son.

She joined a committee of mothers who care for their sons and daughters who are behind bars. On 8M she marched with us as part of a month of events known as Fight and Rebellion called by a network of people who are speaking up and fighting for rights that are being violated.

The peasant, Indigenous, and Afro-descendant women who live in other parts of the country were recognized as part of Fight and Rebellion during 8M. Together, we demanded justice for those who have lived in precariousness due to water shortages, lack of gas, mining in their territories, climate change and oil spills for years.

Today, we name those who are not here: those who were victims of femicide or transfemicide, as well as those who have had to migrate. Data from different organizations indicate that there are more than 7.8 million Venezuelans outside the country. More than half of them are in Colombia. According to the Colombian Women's Observatory, cases of violence against migrant women there increased by 308 percent between 2017 and 2020.

Despite experiencing fear and adversity in their daily lives, Venezuelan women and gender dissidents took to the streets on March 8. Mothers, nurses, teachers, retired women, Afro-Indigenous women, artists, queer women—all of them workers— walked together through the streets of Caracas. In that way, they were taking care of themselves and taking care of one another.