International Women's Day 2021: 40,000 women from Punjab, UP, Haryana to lead farmers' protest in Delhi

Thousands of women protestors of the farmers' movement will join the ongoing agitation at the Singhu, Ghazipur, and Tikri borders on Monday, March 8. They will be joined by students and activists and all arrangements have been made to ensure women protestors take the centre stage on International Women's Day.

Farmer unions have claimed that around 40,000 women from various parts of Haryana, Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh will be part of a congregation at the protest sites. Bhartiya Kisan Union (Ugrahan), which has the largest women wing, has arranged 500 buses, 600 minibuses, 115 trucks besides 200 small vehicles to ferry women protestors, according to BKU (Ugrahan) general secretary Sukhdev Singh Kokrikalan.

"To celebrate women's day, the stage will be managed by women, and the speakers too will be women. And there will be a small march at the Singhu border, the details for which will be shared later. We are expecting more women to join at different protest sites," senior farmer leader and member of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) Kavita Kurugranthy told PTI.

Swaraj India president Yogendra Yadav said women will lead the protests across sites "be it the toll barriers or the permanent protest sites." Meanwhile, women agitators who are a part of the farmers' protests at Delhi's borders also made it to the cover of the coveted TIME magazine. The magazine's new international cover reads, "I cannot be intimidated. I cannot be bought."

The cover shows women farmers raising slogans while carrying their children. It also features old women protestors who have been a constant at the farmers' protest sites for months.

Farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana, and western Uttar Pradesh, have been protesting at Delhi's border points for more than 100 days. Agitating farmers have demanded a full repeal of the three contentious farm laws and a legal guarantee on the minimum support price or MSP for their crops.

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