WIDF (1948): Country Reports on China, Palestine, Egypt, Iran, Viet-Nam, India, Indonesia

=== [PDF page 1] === CHINA #4 group of young girls is pvsting: their faces show th and joy and symbolize new woman of liberated Ming. But their sisters, in other parts of China,’ are weY’ys hungry, beg along rics, fall in the gutters. I¢ ty to defend their exisace, machine guns are turned minst them. @That is the striking contrast the two Chinas: on the one, light, on the other, darks, In China today, between gt and darkness ‘a fierce ggle is going on. Why does darkness surround of China? That is be- Se of the domination of pang Kai Shek, due to Ame- -een imperialism. qSut the China in darkness #‘apidly shrinking. See the moic attitude of two million licrs of the people’s army of Nration, in their struggle. “ the millions of men who the Liberation army to minister Ave war: the people, in China, graphio'® out one and the same s which «Down with American Kkers de+‘fperialism! Down with the ce of af Actionnary regime of Tchiang [Unreadable] en, etQ. Here is a great map of Chi-. i shows ‘that, today, eee qetated China has an area of than two million Square ‘meters and a Population of million inhabitants. And amp out « cultural” de with embrols he ast, 5 e whose 5 ing com + PALESTINE life-size «In Palestine, two eople ee pid live at peace. » Bue, side There tg ¢Sde with the Star of Israé] heal fi with the Arabic Crescent, ane thy re are photographs of war; is ‘ana of Haiffa is the port of he who q um; * controls petroleum. » fet the center of a large cor. formed by the Ppannels of Palestinian exhibit, there show windows which discontrols " the traditional products “ys the new achievements of country. EGYPT He long procession of woa oppressed by 67 years of Britlsh yolk, symbolic prosy ends up in a photoh @ very real one, of a ne poman which domi- * u's the an pannel. the Jone this woman and her sisters, Medici Bes 1/3 of the salary of men, rl illiterate, toils in fields she does not own, risks ‘many of her children: thildren out of 1,000 die. tae ae Women are united to lek we’ the independence of ‘ ~ Nile Vallery and to acclaim pom O filled objecta hero af mMoples' struggles for peace r democracy. these statistics are already outdated! There is one slogan: «Liberate all China!» The China of darkness can be seen in Photographs, in figures. the Chinese exhibit, of this large rectangular space with light colored Pannels, with yellow, red and greens that are bright and lively, with. silks and painted embroidery, with the art of a tradition thou- Sands of years old but ever new, the impression given by this China ig that of the future, of freedom. In liberated China in 3 cantons of the Chihli gulf alone, there are 1,300 women in charge of rural communities. They are the first to benefit from the agrarian reform. In 27 villages of the An-Kus district, out of 5,231 members of the small peasants’ league, land has been entrusted to 2,755 women. What efforts rey undertake on the production front, in the fields, in the rural cooperatives, in the factories, in the artisan skills! In liberated China, women have the same opportunities as men to receive education. How the Democratic government takes care of their children: one must have seen the Photographs of nurseries, children’s schools, etc. In liberated China, women express their firm conviction to defend their new life, IRAN In the strange framework of the thousand-year old civilization of Iran, one can see «the instruments of woman's slavery, which are also a proof of an enslaved and backward people: the veil, polygamy, superstition, Pannels. on which sketches and symbolic silhouettes are united with photographs, show us the Iranian women toiling. She does heavy housework, breaks stones on the roads, Weaves, plants rice. She is there, veiled, seated on the ground threshing wheat, or, arms and legs in water, taking care of the rice. Though Iranian women, demand the equality of rights in their homes, and their personal emancipation, the strugple side by side with their usbands, « Against the inhuman exploitation of their work in the country and in the towns, « they struggle with their whole people for <« the liberation of their country from the im- Perialist domination » and with ¢ all peoples for democracy and for peace, > But the impression of 4, VIET-NAM No picture, no decoration interfere with the stark simplicity of this wall, on which acn e seen part of the French Constitution: « The French re- Public will never undertake a War with the aim of conquest and will never use its strength against the freeom of any people. > The women of the Viet-Nam then query, in large letters, poignantly. « Then, Tet us cease the unjust war on the Viet- Nam!> How is it possible not to understand the enthusiasm which leads Viet-Namese aid the Ho Chi Minh government, Ho Chi Minh whose face stands out from the pictures of the women’s fight and which What striking contrasts in the picture presented by India. On the one hand, the startling and immense wealth of India. « first world producer of sugar cane, second world Producer of cotton, of tobacco, of rice, etc. » On the other hand, suffering, unequalled poverty, anxiety the lot of the Indian women. They live under a doubly heavy yoke: the ancestral and the colonist’s. Short, poignant sentences tell us that: «A woman works two days to buy a quart of milk, one day for two bowls of rice. » «A child earns, in two days, enough to buy four boxes of matches.> «95% of the women are illiterate.» « There Were three and a half million dead in the Bengal famine. » Children work from the age of 5 on, in the tea Plantations, in the factories, ag ‘servants, aS sewer cleaners, «The foreigner guarantees his monstruous profits by bringing suffering and death»: the cotton Weaving factories, the jute factories, the coal mines are British, It is easy to understand that the women « are never against strikes » that, in spite of hunger and repression, peasant and working women struggle « for 4& veritable national independance, for rice, for schools, for happiness, for Peace! > Women to t; dominates the small statue BroUp, symbol of hope, « Under the colonial oppression, the women of Indo-China are paid half as much a3 men for the same work, they have no rest to give birth, no nur- Series. no canteens, no coope- Tatives. » That is why «side by side with men, they struggle » for the Democratic Viet-Nam government hag recognized their rights; already, 16 Women deputies are preparin laws for the bettering of their living Conditions. The first effects are already being felt among Women of all origins; they are also leading a stru Sle against illiteracy, they are eginning to e part in every walk of life, They toil so that their hope May be realized of « independance, freedom, and appiness. > ee ee INDONESIA The Indonesian exhibit expresses the struggle of Indonesian women for freedom, for the independance of their country, and for democracy; the struggle to §uarantee their political, economic and social] rights, What lives they led under the colonial oppression of the Dutch and of the Japanese! at a aes, of sorrow is derived from ooking at the tragic Photographs of women living, in anxiety, under colonialism, when they were « veritable slaves. » That is why Indonesian women took part in the fight which a photomural shows us, a struggle in which the « people was able to conquer its independance and create the Indonesian republic. > Side by side with the pannels of the past, of struggle, there are the pannels, the photographs, the statements of the Present, of the futur. of hope. Above the Photographs of young women, of children, full of promise, of students, of peasant women, it is written that: « After April 17th 1945 there was to open, for Indonesian women, an era of freedom, of sunshine, of hope, «They have acquired the consciousness that their country will know the great rebirth’ of the new democracies, » Today, the Republic is in danger. Once more, the Indonesian women are fighting side by side with the men, for free. dom. They share the wish of all Women of the Asiatic countries: «to live in Peace and independantly, in the friendship of peoples. »