South Floridians Make Their Voices Heard For Women's Day
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MIAMI (CBSMiami) -- On this International Women's Day, dozens of South Florida women gathered outside the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services offices - united and making their voices heard.
"This is the site where dreams come true and dreams are denied. We are participating in the national strike to kind of uplift the narrative that women's emotional, physical labor matters," said attendee Litzy Segu.
Many of these women are not only standing in solidarity – they're also taking the day off and taking part in a day without women.
"I'm privileged to be here because I'm a domestic worker and there are hundreds of domestic workers who are right now not able to take the time off number one because they are very afraid they might be terminated and secondly they just cannot afford to do without the day's pay," said attendee June Barrett.
June is also joining the global movement of today's women's strike.
At VIX, a multimedia company in Coral Gables, Rafael Urbina the CEO is allowing his female employees to take the day off while acknowledging the importance of women in the workforce.
"Women are definitely a majority of our editorial team. All of our content directors and our content leadership are women and we're very proud of that and I think that shows in the content we put out in terms of how inclusive and diverse it is," said Urbina.
Meanwhile, back at the women's rally they were holding signs, chanting and writing messages on the sidewalk - united for women's rights.
"Women today are not going to work. Women today are not buying things. Women are wearing red and that's all to really emphasize the role that we play and saying that women are going to stand up for human rights, for equal pay, for health and for immigrant rights too," said rally organizer Andrea Mercado.
And late Wednesday night, women and men in red were lit by candlelight in Broward.
They held one finally rally as the "Day Without a Woman" came to a close.
"Women have played an important role in society," said Mica Jordan, the co-captain of the Women's March Broward. "And a day without us – a lot of things stop. And we want our voices to be heard. We want equal pay. We want to be appreciated."
