Revolutionary Women’s League (Kenya)
Dear Comrades,
On behalf of the working and the oppressed women of Kenya, on behalf of the Revolutionary Women’s League (RWL); the militant mass women’s organisation of the Communist Party Marxist Kenya (CPMK)—we extend our warmest, most militant revolutionary greetings to this historic gathering.
We salute the convening of the 1st International Conference of the World Anti-Imperialist Women’s Platform. We salute the women of Venezuela, whose strength has given this Platform its birth. We salute the fighters of the world who declare: the liberation of women will never be a gift from imperialism; it will be won through revolution.
Why Caracas? Why now? Because Caracas is a living symbol. Caracas is the land where women defend the Bolivarian Revolution, shoulder to shoulder with workers and peasants. Caracas is the land where women in the Comunas advance socialism against the brutal aggression of US imperialism. And so, it is here, in the trenches of anti-imperialism, that the World Anti-Imperialist Women’s Platform takes its first step.
Comrades, in Kenya the condition of women is one of semi-feudal oppression and neocolonial bondage. In the countryside, women peasants till the soil yet own nothing. The land is monopolised by landlords, comprador chiefs, and foreign agribusiness. Women labour twice: in the fields and in the home; yet remain chained by custom and poverty. In the cities, women workers are super-exploited in the Export Processing Zones, stitching clothes for imperialist brands, working long hours, harassed by supervisors, denied protective gear, denied wages that feed their children.
In the slums, women of the urban poor carry the impossible burden of survival; queuing for water, struggling with hunger, fighting evictions, while landlords and moneylenders squeeze the last coin from their hands. And across all these classes, women are chained by the usury system; by mobile loans, micro-credit schemes, and ruthless moneylenders that drive entire households into debt, turning the daily survival of women into a battlefield against imperialist finance. Across all classes of the oppressed, women also face patriarchal violence; rape, forced marriages, beatings, police brutality, and the suffocating weight of tradition.
This is the condition of Kenyan women under imperialism. This is the condition of Kenyan women under semi-feudalism. This is why our liberation cannot be postponed, cannot be bargained, cannot be divorced from the liberation of the whole society.
Comrades, Lenin taught us that every country must find its revolutionary road. Mao taught us that in semi-feudal, semi-colonial countries, the road must pass through the New Democratic Revolution. For Kenya, for Africa, for all neocolonial countries, the immediate task is the National Democratic Revolution (NDR). The NDR means smashing feudal landlordism. The NDR means uprooting imperialist domination. The NDR means defeating comprador capitalism. The NDR means breaking the chains of usury that strangle women and peasants alike. The NDR means building people’s democracy led by the working class in alliance with the peasantry. And without the liberation of women, the NDR cannot advance. Because women peasants are the backbone of agriculture. Because women workers are the muscle of industry. Because women in the slums and villages are the living heart of the masses. To liberate Kenya, we must liberate the women of Kenya. To liberate the women of Kenya, we must liberate Kenya from imperialism, feudalism, and usury.
Comrades, usury is not only a Kenyan wound; it is a global chain of imperialism. In Asia, women garment workers in Bangladesh and Cambodia are trapped in micro-credit debts, their meagre wages swallowed by moneylenders. In Latin America, peasant women are crushed by IMF structural adjustment programmes, forced to borrow to pay for food and medicine, only to be trapped in cycles of debt. Across Africa, women farmers are lured into donor-backed micro-finance projects, only to lose their land and labour to imperialist banks. Usury is the daily face of imperialism in the lives of women. It is the IMF and World Bank in the village. It is Wall Street in the slum. It is imperialist finance capital tightening its grip on the wombs and stomachs of the oppressed. To defeat imperialism, we must smash usury. To smash usury, we must unite women with workers and peasants in revolution.
Comrades, we must be clear: there are two lines in the women’s movement. One line is the pro-imperialist, bourgeois feminism; tied to NGOs, tied to donor funds, tied to imperialist embassies. It speaks of “empowerment” while leaving intact the chains of imperialism. It preaches individualism, division, and hatred. It cannot speak for the women of Africa, Asia, or Latin America. The other line is the anti-imperialist, socialist women’s movement. This line unites women’s liberation with the liberation of society. This line rejects illusions and insists that women’s freedom must be fought for in unity with workers and peasants. We, the Revolutionary Women’s League, stand firmly on the second line.
Comrades, the World Anti-Imperialist Women’s Platform is not only an organisation. It is a weapon—a weapon of solidarity, a weapon of unity, a weapon of revolution. It will link the struggles of women peasants in Africa with the struggles of women workers in Asia. It will link the struggles of Palestinian women resisting Zionist occupation with the struggles of Venezuelan women resisting sanctions. It will link the struggles of Sudanese women in famine and war with the struggles of Cuban women resisting blockade. It will forge one mighty current of women’s power. It will forge one mighty current of anti-imperialist resistance. It will forge one mighty current advancing toward socialism.
Comrades, let us remember: without women’s liberation, there is no people’s liberation. Without anti-imperialism, there is no women’s liberation. Without socialism, there is no emancipation for humanity. Without the defeat of usury, there is no freedom for the peasant and no relief for the working woman.
Comrades, the road ahead is long and difficult. However long the night, the dawn will surely break. The dawn is coming. The dawn of women’s liberation. The dawn of people’s liberation. The dawn of socialism.
Long live the World Anti-Imperialist Women’s Platform!
Long live the unity of women in the anti-imperialist struggle!
Long live the National Democratic Revolution in Kenya and across Africa!
Long live proletarian internationalism!
Forward to socialism! Forward to victory! Forward to women’s liberation!
Secretary
Revolutionary Women’s League (RWL)
Women’s Mass Organisation of the Communist Party Marxist Kenya (CPMK)
September 2025
