The women’s strike in 2021 marched peacefully from the central station to Place d’Armes, a route so far denied for this year Library photo: Romain Gamba / Maison Moderne

The women’s strike in 2021 marched peacefully from the central station to Place d’Armes, a route so far denied for this year Library photo: Romain Gamba / Maison Moderne

A platform organising an annual march on International Women’s Day has demanded access to the Luxembourg City centre after being restricted to a protest zone between the Glacis and Kirchberg.

JIF Luxembourg--named after the Journée internationale des femmes (International Women’s Day)--on Monday presented its policy demands and programme for this year’s women’s strike.

In previous years, the march walked up from the central train station to Place d’Armes but this year it has been denied the route by Luxembourg City authorities, which clamped down on demonstrations last year after protests by anti-vaccine groups escalated.

“We refuse to be punished because of the wrongful conduct of a small minority,” said Michelle Cloos of the OGBL during a press conference on Monday.

JIF Luxembourg is an umbrella organisation that brings together more than a dozen associations, political parties, unions and reproductive and women’s rights groups.

The platform has demanded that the city reverse its decision. While pandemic protests in December saw police use water cannon against agitators, demonstrations in past weeks have been largely peaceful with numbers dwindling to a few hundred people at most.

The platform’s policy demands remained largely unchanged from last year, as the organisation said little to no progress has been made.

The group calls for the wage gap to close--with women often caught in lower-paid and part-time jobs also leading to a lower pension later in life--for working hours to be reduced in favour of a more equal distribution of unpaid care work, three months’ birth leave for both parents, and access to affordable housing.

JIF added a fifth item to its programme, saying the government should do more to tackle violence against women and enforce prosecution. Luxembourg’s justice system currently doesn’t include femicide--the gender-based killing of women--as a separate criminal offence from homicide.

“We demand a system in which the murder of women is defined and classified. This would allow the identification and elimination of risk factors,” said Yasmine Chlouti. “We would like the number of women, who are killed because of their gender, to be quantified.”

The march is scheduled for 8 March at 5pm, with details of the location yet to be defined in the ongoing dispute with Luxembourg City.