Haleh Sahabi
Advancing Universal Rights and Justice
Uprooting Fascisms and Fundamentalisms
Across the globe, feminist, women’s rights and gender justice defenders are challenging the agendas of fascist and fundamentalist actors. These oppressive forces target women, persons who are non-conforming in their gender identity, expression and/or sexual orientation, and other oppressed communities.
Discriminatory ideologies are undermining and co-opting our human rights systems and standards, with the aim of making rights the preserve of only certain groups. In the face of this, the Advancing Universal Rights and Justice (AURJ) initiative promotes the universality of rights - the foundational principle that human rights belong to everyone, no matter who they are, without exception.
We create space for feminist, women’s rights and gender justice movements and allies to recognize, strategize and take collective action to counter the influence and impact of anti-rights actors. We also seek to advance women’s rights and feminist frameworks, norms and proposals, and to protect and promote the universality of rights.
Our actions
Through this initiative, we:
- Build knowledge: We support feminist, women’s rights and gender justice movements by disseminating and popularizing knowledge and key messages about anti-rights actors, their strategies, and impact in the international human rights systems through AWID’s leadership role in the collaborative platform, the Observatory on the Universality of Rights (OURs)*.
- Advance feminist agendas: We ally ourselves with partners in international human rights spaces including, the Human Rights Council, the Commission on Population and Development, the Commission on the Status of Women and the UN General Assembly.
- Create and amplify alternatives: We engage with our members to ensure that international commitments, resolutions and norms reflect and are fed back into organizing in other spaces locally, nationally and regionally.
- Mobilize solidarity action: We take action alongside women human rights defenders (WHRDs) including trans and intersex defenders and young feminists, working to challenge fundamentalisms and fascisms and call attention to situations of risk.
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Veena Singh
Biography
Veena Singh is a Fiji Islander, a feminist and a woman of colour. Veena was born and raised in a small rural town in Fiji and is of mixed ethnicity (her mum is an Indigenous Fijian woman and dad is Fijian of Indian descent). She is a feminist development practitioner and is a strong advocate of ‘shifting powers to create positive change’ and in ‘building an economy of kindness’. Her work experience has largely been in the areas of Human Rights, Gender Equality and Social Inclusion and she has more than 18 years of professional experience working specifically in women and children’s rights, Women, Peace and Security (UNSCR 1325), Human Security, Community Development and Community Media. Veena has worked and volunteered for several Fiji-based NGOs before joining SPC- Fiji Women’s Rights Movement, FemLINKPacific, Fiji Red Cross and Save the Children (Fiji).
Additionally, Veena has worked on a wide range of development areas and issues, including Access to Justice, Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR), Women’s Political Participation, Leadership and in Decision Making, and more recently in the area of Gender Statistics. Her work has enabled her to work very closely with development practitioners, feminists, activists, government representatives, and peace practitioners across the Pacific, Asia, Europe, and African Region. Outside of the office, she likes to work on promoting and protecting the environment; raising awareness on positive mental health and wellbeing; and spending time on writing.
She is a mum to 11 cats, proud wearer of sarees and a collector of postcards. Veena is a thoughtful observer on the direction of feminist activities in Fiji and the Pacific region, and in her own organisations, and seeks, as she describes it, "to decolonise her mind and the ‘self’ through radical self-reflection" but more importantly for her, she cares about putting out more relatable writing that will connect her with the Pacific diaspora. Veena holds a Degree in Community Development with Murdoch University (Australia) and a Postgraduate Diploma in Social Policy with the Fiji National University
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Flor Alba Nunez Vargas
Do you produce an annual report?
Yes, we do produce annual reports.
All our annual reports are accessible online.
Dr. Nuzhat Amin
