Adolfo Lujan | Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Mass demonstration in Madrid on International Women's Day
Multitudinaria manifestación en Madrid en el día internacional de la mujer

Priority Areas

Supporting feminist, women’s rights and gender justice movements to thrive, to be a driving force in challenging systems of oppression, and to co-create feminist realities.

Advancing Universal Rights and Justice

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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.  

 

Related Content

Type

Patience Chabururuka

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Biography

Patience is a global human resources professional with over a decade of experience in human resources (HR) management in the not-for-profit sector. Patience previously worked at Mercy Corps as the Global HR Officer for Africa supporting the full employee life cycle for expatriates in the Eastern and Southern African region and provided HR technical guidance to Human Resources leaders in country offices within the African region. Before joining the global people team, she was the Country Human Resources and Safeguarding Focal Point, she was part of the senior management team leading on all human resources and safeguarding matters. Prior to Mercy Corps she led the HR and Operations department at SNV Netherlands Development Organization and was a member of the country management team. She also has HR Consultancy experience which she gained while she was still studying for her BSc Honors degree in Human Resource Management. She has a passion for HR, loves working with people and she takes wellbeing and safeguarding as her core values and in her professional work. As someone who loves sports, you can also find Patience at the basketball court, the tennis court or on the soccer field.

Position
Human Resources Coordinator
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Fadila M.

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Category
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
Region
Africa
North Africa
Date of death / disappearance
Cause of death / disappearance

Most likely killed

Fadila M. was a Soulaliyate tribal activist from Azrou, the Ifrane region of Morocco. She fought against a specific form of land discrimination directed against tribal women.

As part of the Soulaliyate Women’s Land-Use Rights Movement, she worked towards overhauling the framework legislation relating to the management of community property through the 2019 adoption of three projects of laws guaranteeing the equality of women and men.

According to the customary laws in force, women had no right to benefit from the land, especially those who were single, widowed or divorced. The rights to collective land in Morocco were transmitted traditionally between male members of a family of over 16 years of age. Since 2007, Fadila M. had been part of the women’s movement, the first grassroots nationwide mobilization for land rights. Some of the achievements included that in 2012 for the first time Soulaliyate women were able to register on the lists of beneficiaries and to benefit from compensation relating to land cession. The movement also managed to get the 1919 dahir (Moroccan King's decree) amended to guarantee women the right to equality.

Fadila M. died on 27 September 2018. The circumstances of her death are unclear. She was part of a protest march connected to the issue of collective land and while authorities reported her death as being accidental, and her having a cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital, the local section of the Moroccan Association of Human Rights (AMDH) pointed out that Fadila was suffocated by a member of the police force using a Moroccan flag. Her family requested investigation but the results of the autopsy were not known.

Find out more about the Soulaliyate Women’s Land-Use Rights Movement

Please note: As there was no photograph/image of Fadila M. available to us, the artwork (instead of a portrait) aims to represent what she fought and worked for; land and rights to live and have access to that land and what grows on it.

هل هناك منهجية مفضلة للجلسات؟

تقترح الدعوة للتقدم بالمقترحات عددًا من التنسيقات والمنهجيات المقترحة. كن/ كوني مبدعًا/ة وتأكد/ي من قراءة قسم "ما تحتاج/ين إلى معرفته".

Nana Abuelsoud

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Biography

Nana is a feminist organizer and a reproductive rights and population policy researcher based in Egypt. She is a member of Realizing Sexual and Reproductive Justice (RESURJ), a member of the Advisory Board of the A Project in Lebanon, and a member of the Community Committee of Mama Cash. Nana holds an MSc in Public Health from KIT Institute and Vrije University in Amsterdam. In her work, she follows and contextualizes national population policies while building evidence that addresses modern eugenics, regressive international aid, and authoritarianism. Previously, she was part of the Geneva Foundation for Medical Education and Research, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, and Ikhtyar Feminist Collective in Cairo.

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Stacey Park Milbern

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Category
Civil & Political Rights
Region
North America
Date of birth
Date of death / disappearance
Cause of death / disappearance

Natural

“I do not know a lot about spirituality or what happens when we die, but my crip queer Korean life makes me believe that our earthly bodyminds is but a fraction, and not considering our ancestors is electing only to see a glimpse of who we are.” - Stacey Park Milbern

Stacey Park Milbern was a self-identifying queer disabled woman of colour and a trailblazer. A long-standing and respected organizer and leader in the disability rights and justice movement, she also advocated for the rights of many different communities, not just her own. Stacey’s activism had mighty roots in her experience at the intersections of gender, disability, sexuality and race.

Stacey, along with some friends, co-created the Disability Justice Culture Club, a group working to support various and especially vulnerable communities, including helping homeless people gain access to resources during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

She was also a co-producer of an impact campaign for Netflix’s documentary “Crip Camp”, a board member of the WITH Foundation, and led organizations at local, state and national levels. Stacey wrote beautifully and powerfully:

“My ancestors are people torn apart from loves by war and displacement. It’s because of them I know the power of building home with whatever you have, wherever you are, whoever you are with. My ancestors are queers who lived in the American South. It’s because of them I understand the importance of relationships, place and living life big, even if it is dangerous. All of my ancestors know longing. Longing is often our connecting place...” - Stacey Park Milbern

She was born in Seoul, Korea and grew up in North Carolina, later  continuing her journey in the San Francisco Bay Area. Stacey passed away of complications from surgery on her 33rd birthday on 19 May 2020. 

Read an essay by Stacey Park Milbern
Listen to an interview with Stacey Park Milbern
#StaceyTaughtUs: Record your story for the Disability Visibility Project

Tributes:

“She was, a lot of people would say, a leader. She kind of encompassed all of it. You know, sometimes there's like a lead from the front, lead from the middle, lead from the back. And she was just somehow able to do all of that.” - Andraéa LaVant, disability rights activist

“What a blow to lose Stacey when our communities need her leadership more than ever, and at a time when her strength, insight, and grit were receiving increased recognition outside of disability circles, giving her a greater platform to advance her life’s work...We will not have the gift of learning where her charismatic leadership would have taken us. But let there be no doubt: What Stacey gave us, in a relatively short time, will continue benefiting others for years to come.” - Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF)

CFA FAQ - Travelling to Bangkok - AR

السفر إلى بانكوك

Do you produce an annual report?

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Yes, we do produce annual reports.

All our annual reports are accessible online.

See all annual reports from AWID

سؤالي لم تتم الإجابة عليه هنا

لمزيد من الأسئلة، يرجى استخدام نموذج الاتصال. سنستمر في تحديث هذه الوثيقة بناءً على الاستفسارات التي نتلقاها منك!

2011: The fifth High-level dialogue kick starts Post-2015 discussions

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The Fifth High- Level Dialogue on Financing for Development, 7 – 8 December 2011, marked the beginning of the Post 2015 development agenda discussions, and the link to financing for development. The conference gave a special focus to increasing aid to finance the MDG’s. In his closing remarks, the Secretary General called on members to begin to consider the post-2015 development framework. 

Snippet - CSW68 - AWID at CSW Post - EN

Image with purple background. The words: AWID at CSW - Reclaiming Feminist Power. New York.

What is the 14th AWID Forum theme?

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The 14th Forum theme is “Feminist Realities: our power in action”. 

We understand Feminist Realities as the different ways of existing and being that show us what is possible, despite dominant power systems, and in defiance and resistance to them.  We understand these feminist realities as reclamations and embodiments of hope and power, and as  multi-dimentional, dynamic and rooted in specific contexts and historical moments.

Read more about Feminist Realities

 

Snippet - WITM To Strengthen - EN

To strengthen our collective voice and power for more and better funding for feminist, women's rights, LBTQI+ and allied organizing globally

Where and when will the next AWID Forum take place?

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The 14th AWID International Forum will take place 20-23 September 2021 in Taipei, Taiwan.

Find out more!

Why should I consider responding to the survey?

There are many reasons why your response to the WITM survey matters. The survey offers the opportunity to share your lived experience of mobilizing funding to support your organizing; claim your power as an expert on how money moves and who it reaches; and contribute to collective and consistent advocacy to funders moving more and better funding. Over the last two decades, AWID’s WITM research has proven to be a key resource for activists and funders. We wholeheartedly invite you to join us in its third iteration to highlight the actual state of resourcing, challenge false solutions, and point out how funding must change for movements to thrive and meet the complex challenges of our times.

Events

Vaccine Justice: How can feminists collectively organise to hold States accountable?

Should I do any preparation to respond to the survey?

As the WITM survey is focused on resourcing realities for feminist organizations, most questions ask about your group’s funding between 2021–2023. You will need to have this information with you to fill out the survey (e.g., your annual budgets and key sources of funding).

Jobs Board

Vacancy: Parental Cover - Information Technology (IT) Support Coordinator

Snippet - Intro WITM - RU

Основываясь на 20-летней истории привлечения более объемного и качественного финансирования для достижения социальных изменений под руководством феминисток(-ов), AWID приглашает вас принять участие в новом опросе: 

«Где же деньги для феминистских объединений?»

(далее – «Где деньги?»)

Пройти опрос!Руководство

Пожалуйста выберите язык, на котором вы хотите отвечать на вопросы в правом верхнем углу страницы

Snippet - WITM to claim - PT

Para reivindicar o seu poder como especialista sobre o estado dos recursos de movimentos feministas;