‘Equal Rights, Equal Opportunities

     IN order to build a great democratic, just, fair and humane society, it is of utmost importance to arouse the broad masses of our people to join the struggle that will ensure "equal rights, equal opportunities and progress for all".Genuine equality between women and men, girls and boys can only be realised in the process of a just, fair and humane transformation of our society as a whole.Women must not be treated as mere passive participants in national development. But they must enjoy fundamental rights and freedoms befitting all human beings, both in domestic and public life. Women need to be treated justly in families, workplaces, public life and the Church.

    Today, as yesterday, there is no other formula for building our country into a prosperous, just, fair and humane nation: we must emerge from ourselves, we must devote ourselves to the cause of women - to the discriminated, very marginalised and poorest. And perhaps this is the moment to take seriously something that theology has been telling us in its too spiritualistic and too academic way: salvation comes by way of a woman - Mary, the virgin of the cross and of the Magnificat. Salvation comes to us through all women who love truth more than lies, who are more eager to give than to receive, and whose love is that supreme love that gives life rather than keeping it for oneself.

     We should be aware that the liberation of women from these injustices is part and parcel of the liberation of all the poor and oppressed. This realisation demands a total rupture with the prevailing patriarchal system in order to build an egalitarian society. The women's struggle is deeply connected with efforts of all the poor who are struggling for their upliftment in all aspects of life.