AWID's Friday Files

FRIDAY FILE - On April 2, 2013, a decades long campaign culminated in the signing of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) at the UN General Assembly. The ATT prohibits arms sales when there is a risk that weapons could be used to violate international humanitarian or human rights law. 

FRIDAY FILE - Long working hours, lack of rest time and poor treatment and compensation, in the absence of national legislation, often turns domestic work into a form of slavery in many countries. We reflect on some of the changes taking place in Latin America regarding decent work for domestic workers.

FRIDAY FILE – From 20-22 March, about 250 people, largely from civil society organizations (CSOs) and another third from other stakeholders such as the United Nations (UN), gathered in Bonn, Germany for an international conference on Advancing the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda.  There was an active group of women’s rights organizations and advocates who made it clear that “We will not be mainstreamed into a polluted stream!”

FRIDAY FILE - As the World Social Forum in Tunis wrapped up, many agreed that the vitality of the older days of the Forum was back. Taking place at the Al Manar University in Tunis, amidst the still unmet calls for dignity and justice of the Arab uprisings, it gathered about 54,000 people who were united in their hopes for a better world.

FRIDAY FILE - In December 2012 the United States Senate failed to ratify the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Esmé Grant[i] from the United States International Council on Disabilities (USICD) talked to AWID about why it failed and how they are committed to ensuring the CRPD will be ratified in 2013.

FRIDAY FILE - AWID spoke to Maya Alvarado, Executive Director of Unión Nacional de Mujeres Guatemaltecas (UNAMG) about the historic trial in which Guatemala’s former dictator and chief of military intelligence are charged with genocide and crimes against humanity, the first such trial to take place in the Central American country.

FRIDAY FILE - Women human rights defenders (WHRDs) work under precarious conditions, often putting their lives in danger as they defend and protect women’s economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) across the globe.

FRIDAY FILE - After a five-year-long case, a Dutch Court has held the Nigerian Subsidiary of Shell responsible for the pollution of farmlands in Nigeria, marking a victory in the struggle against the oil company that has been at the centre of environmental concerns in Nigeria for over 40 years. 

FRIDAY FILE: The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW 57) ended last week Friday with an Agreed Conclusions document acknowledged by many as fair and balanced, and “an important step forward” to addressing violence against women and girls (VAWG).

FRIDAY FILE - Deciphering U.S. federal budget negotiating -- let alone from a gender perspective -- is no easy task. Fortunately several women’s rights organizations are doing just that. AWID interviewed Joan Entmacher of the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) and Radhika Balakrishnan of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL) at Rutgers University to help us unpack the rhetoric and decode what U.S. federal budget negotiations mean for women’s rights.

FRIDAY FILE: A unique ‘aggregate analysis’ of the Dutch MDG3 Fund, conducted by AWID, with input from 33 fund recipient organisations provides a unique opportunity to highlight the broad range of multi-sectoral strategies that organisations are using a to tackle gender based violence (GBV) and the importance of continued and sustained funding for the work they do.

FRIDAY FILE: AWID takes a look at what is at stake with this year’s priority theme for the 57th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW 57) that will take place at United Nations (UN) Headquarters in New York from 4 to 15 March 2013  - the Elimination and prevention of all forms of violence against women and girls.  

FRIDAY FILE - The eighteenth Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC COP18) took place from November 26 to December 8, 2012 in Doha, Qatar. 

FRIDAY FILE: Murders of indigenous women human rights defenders (WHRDs) in the Philippines have caused worldwide condemnation. Defending indigenous communities’ rights to sustainable livelihoods, and protecting ancestral lands from mining interests has become an increasingly dangerous struggle.

FRIDAY FILE: Almost twenty years after the 1993 Vienna World Conference on Human Rights, the Vienna Policy Dialogue entitled “Advancing gender equality and the empowerment of women: the role of development cooperation”, took place in Vienna, Austria from 13 to14 December 2012[1].

FRIDAY FILE: The Global Youth Forum (GYF) held in Bali, Indonesia, from 4-6 December 2012, was a process mandated by the United Nations (UN) as part of the review of the implementation of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) Programme of Action beyond 2014.

FRIDAY FILE: Indigenous women have and continue to play key leadership roles in their communities as well as in international spaces. AWID talked to Otilia Lux de Coti, Executive Director of the Indigenous Women’s Forum (IIWF) about how indigenous women leadership has evolved in the past decades.

FRIDAY FILE: From ongoing and increasing violence, conflict and global crises to both progressive and regressive laws and resolutions, 2012 saw progress and setbacks to women's rights. AWID presents a visual overview of some of the year's events through a women's rights lens. 

FRIDAY FILE - AWID interviewed Elizabeth Vasquez from Proyecto Transgenero about their innovative work, inspiring achievements and further challenges ahead for transgender rights in Ecuador.

FRIDAY FILE - As 2015 and the deadline for the United Nations (UN) Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) approaches – with progress limited, narrow and uneven – and on the heels of a disappointing Rio +20 Conference on Sustainable Development, the UN is advancing a process to define a new global development agenda beyond 2015.

FRIDAY FILE - Since the coup d’état in Honduras in June 2009, there has been an on-going and worsening situation of systemic violence and assassinations of human rights defenders.  This is particularly serious for women human rights defenders (WHRDs).

FRIDAY FILE - AWID Interviews three Egyptian women’s rights activists, Yara Sallam, Shahinaz El Hennawi and Dina* about their hopes and concerns since Egypt’s first free elections this year.

FRIDAY FILE: On October 17, 2012, Law 18.987 was passed in Uruguay allowing women to voluntarily interrupt their pregnancy, but under certain restrictive conditions. AWID spoke to feminist activists, Lilián Abracinskas, Lucy Garrido, Ana Lima and Romina Napiloti, who have been involved in the 27 year long struggle for the passage of this controversial law.

FRIDAY FILE - Grounded in a context of mafias, militarization and impunity sanctioned by some States in Latin America, femicides are increasing in number and brutality. As we commemorate the annual Sixteen Days of Activism Against Gender Violence campaign from November 25^thto December 10^{th [1A]}, AWID spoke to Ana Carcedo from Centro Feminista de Información y Acción (Cefemina) in Costa Rica about this reality.

FRIDAY FILE - With the upsurge in the criminalization of civil society, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders’ 2012 report discusses how States use legislation to regulate the activities of human rights defenders (HRDs).