Estefania "Nia" Zuniga
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.
Related Content
Snippet FEA different lines of work FOR S4 (EN)
Lines of work:
FOR
Anabel Flores Salazar
Snippet FEA Union Otras Photo 5 (EN)
Annual Report 2009
Our 2009 Annual Report includes highlights of another busy year of action and reflection at AWID as we implement our commitment to boldly, creatively and effectively contribute to the advancement of women’s rights and gender equality worldwide.
In the report you can find out about our programmatic achievements, membership, finances, what to watch out for in 2010, as well as information about our Board and Staff.
Yaneth Alejandra Calvache Riveros
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Snippet FEA We are living in a world right (EN)
Even in times of climate crisis, governments continue to encourage large-scale agriculture industries to expand. These activities poison the land, threaten biodiversity, and destroy local food production and livelihoods. Meanwhile, while women produce the majority of our food in the world, they own almost none of the land.
What if we perceived land and Nature not as private property to exploit, but as a whole to live in, learn from, and harmoniously coexist with? What if we repaired our relationships with the land and embraced more sustainable alternatives that nurture both the planet and its communities?
Nous Sommes la Solution (We Are the Solution, NSS) is one of many women-led movements striving to do this. This is their story.
Sara AbuGhazal
Biography
Sara AbuGhazal is a Palestinian feminist living in Beirut. She is a co-founder of Sawt al-Niswa, a collective that produces knowledge in Beirut. She is the co-director of The Knowledge Workshop, a feminist organization based in Beirut that works on feminist oral history and archiving. Sara is currently the Regional Coordinator of the Regional Coalition for Women Human Rights Defenders in the Middle East and North Africa.
Sara strives to help create spaces of feminist transformation and solidarity. Her work is mostly centered on building sustainable movements in the MENA region. She is invested in knowledge production, feminist transformation, and Palestine. She publishes regularly in sawtalniswa.org and her fiction also appears in Romman e-magazine.
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Sandhya Rao
Snippet Forum Quoate Sara Abu (EN)
The Forum is a live example of what the bigger WE can do. We go to the Forum, we are seeds, we then get sowed. This we have to celebrate.
- Sara Abu Ghazal, Lebanon
Eni Lestari
Biography
Eni Lestari is an Indonesian domestic worker in Hong Kong and a migrant rights activist. After escaping her abusive employer, she transformed herself from a victim into an organizer for domestic workers in particular, and migrant workers in general. In 2000, she founded the Association of Indonesian Migrant Workers (ATKI-Hong Kong) which later expanded to Macau, Taiwan, and Indonesia. She was the coordinator and the one of the spokesperson of the Asia Migrants Coordinating Body (AMCB) - an alliance of grassroots migrants organisations in Hong Kong coming from Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Nepal and Sri Lanka. She is also the current chairperson of International Migrants Alliance, the first-ever global alliance of grassroots migrants, immigrants, refugees, and other displaced people.
She has held important positions in various organizations including and current Regional Council member of Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD), former Board Member of Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW), spokesperson for Network of Indonesian Migrant Workers (JBMI), advisor for ATKI-Hong Kong and Macau as well as the Association of Returned Migrants and Families in Indonesia (KABAR BUMI). She has been an active resource person in forums organized by academics, interfaith groups, civil societies, trade unions and many others at national, regional, and international arenas.
She has actively participated in United Nations assemblies/conferences on development and migrants’ rights and was chosen as a speaker at the opening of the UN General Assembly on Large Movement of Migrants and Refugees in 2016 in New York City, USA. She received nominations and awards such as Inspirational Women by BBC 100 Women, Public Hero Award by RCTI, Indonesian Club Award, and Non-Profit Leader of Women of Influence by American Chamber Hong Kong, and Changemaker of Cathay Pacific.
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Solange Habonimana
Does AWID provide scholarships to attend the Forum?
Our Access Fund will offer a limited number of scholarships to fund the participation of activists who cannot otherwise make it, and don’t have relationships with funders who could cover their participation. So if you have other possibilities, please explore them. We will do our best to offer as many scholarships as we can, and will share more information about this process and how to apply in early 2024.
Alejandra Morena
Biography
Alejandra is passionate about women’s rights and gender justice. She dreams of creating a world that centers care – for people and nature. As a feminist human rights expert, she’s worked at the intersections of gender, climate, social and economic justice at various international organizations. Her areas of expertise include knowledge building and co-creation, research, facilitation, and advocacy. She holds a MA in Human Rights from the University of Essex and has authored and co-developed many publications, including the article “Enraged: Women and Nature”. The campaign Feminist Activism Without Fear draws on interviews and research carried out by Alejandra.
Originally from Argentina, she has lived and worked in several countries in Europe and Latin America over the past two decades. Alejandra loves photography, the sea, baking with her daughter, and enjoying food from around the world. As a mother, she aims to be a cycle breaker. Alejandra draws energy and inspiration from the amazing women in her life, who are spread in many corners of the world.
Position
Research & Advocacy Lead, Resourcing Feminist Movements
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Aysin Büyüknohutçu
CFA 2023 - Intro - EN
“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.” - Maya Angelou
Welcome to the 15th AWID International Forum!
The AWID International Forum is both a global community event and a space of radical personal transformation. A one-of-a-kind convening, the Forum brings together feminist, women’s rights, gender justice, LBTQI+ and allied movements, in all our diversity and humanity, to connect, heal and thrive. The Forum is a place where Global South feminists and historically marginalized communities take center stage, strategizing with each other and allied movements, funders and policy-makers, in order to shift power, make alliances, and usher in a different, better world.
When people come together on a global scale, as individuals and movements, we generate a sweeping force. Join us in Bangkok, Thailand in 2024. Come dance, sing, dream and rise with us.
When: 2–5 December 2024
Where: Bangkok, Thailand; and online
Who: Approximately 2,500 feminists from all over the world participating in-person, and 3,000 participating virtually
Learn more about the forum:
Read our Frequently Asked Questions
I am interested in working for women’s rights. How do I get started?
Yolanda Santana
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CFA 2023 - Submit application card - EN
We welcome applications across the full range of thematic areas and intersections important to feminist and gender justice movements.
January 2015: 1st drafting session on the outcome document for the 3rd FfD Conference
The 1st drafting session on the outcome document for the 3rd Financing for Development Conference
- In January 2015 a series of drafting sessions towards the final outcome document started at UN headquarters in New York.
- Prior to the first drafting session the co-facilitators of the Addis conference preparatory process presented an elements paper for the so-called “zero-draft” outcome document, as the basis for the intergovernmental negotiations of the outcome document.
- During the sessions, women’s rights organisations emphasised the need to treat the FfD and means of implementations (MOI) under the post 2015 processes separately, because FfD provides a unique opportunity for states to address the structural causes of inequality.