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
Michelle D'Cruz
Michelle is a Southeast Asian feminist who enjoys conspiring to bring people together and spark conversations for social change and feminist knowledge sharing, through art, poetry, music and games. With a background in digital advocacy and communications strategy development, she has contributed to initiatives in digital rights, human rights research, and civil society coalition building throughout Southeast Asia. She has an LLB from National University of Singapore, enjoys following her feet down random city streets and likes coffee a little too much.
كم سؤال في الاستطلاع؟
هنالك 47 سؤال في الاستطلاع، منها 27 سؤال اجباري* والعشرين الباقين هي أسئلة اختيارية. أغلب الأسئلة هي أسئلة متعددة الخيارات. ندعوكم/ن للإجابة على جميع الأسئلة.
Khaoula Ksiksi
Khaoula Ksiksi is a passionate advocate for justice, equity, and liberation. As a Gender, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (GEDI) Advisor, she works to make inclusivity a lived reality, not just a policy, across humanitarian programs and crisis contexts. She collaborates with teams to challenge structural oppression using bold, transformative tools rooted in lived experience.
Her activism began on the frontlines of Tunisia’s anti-racism movement. With Mnemty, she helped push through the country’s first anti-discrimination law, forcing a national reckoning with racial injustice. She later co-founded Voices of Black Tunisian Women to amplify Black women’s leadership, build solidarity networks, and demand visibility in a society that often silences them.
Khaoula is also a founding member of Falgatna, a radical queer-feminist movement fighting for SOGIESC rights and supporting LGBTQI+ communities through direct action, digital resistance, and survivor-centered advocacy.
Previously, she led regional feminist and climate justice projects at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in North and West Africa.
At the heart of her work is a deep belief: no one is free until we all are. Her activism is both a fight and a love letter to her people, her communities, and the world we deserve.
Как вы будете представлять и обрабатывать данные, собранные в ходе опроса?
Данные будут обработаны в статистических целях, чтобы осветить состояние ресурсного обеспечения феминистских движений во всем мире, и представлены будут только в обобщенном виде. AWID не будет публиковать информацию о конкретных организациях или отображать информацию, которая позволила бы идентифицировать организации по их местоположению или характеристикам, без их согласия.
Can organizations be members of AWID?
Yes, we encourage institutional membership.
AWID currently has hundreds of prominent, innovative organizations working on issues related to women’s rights and development as members. Criteria for membership are the same as for individuals, although membership fees and membership benefits are different, and are geared to address the needs of our member organizations.
As realidades de financiamento para movimentos feministas mudam rapidamente. Este questionário é um ocorrência única?
Não. Tem por base a história de 20 anos da AWID de mobilizar mais financiamento de maior qualidade para mudanças sociais lideradas por feministas e é a terceira edição do nosso inquérito “Onde está o dinheiro para organização feminista?”. O nosso objetivo é repetir o inquérito WITM a cada 3 anos.
2009: The UN holds Conference on the impact of the economic crisis
2009 UN Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impacts on Development
- The 2009 conference was an outcome of the 2008 Doha conference. The Doha Declaration had mandated that the United Nations hold a conference, to be organized by the President of the General Assembly, on the world financial and economic crisis and its impact on development.
- During the conference women’s groups, through the WWG, highlighted the impact of the global financial crisis on vulnerable groups. In their statement to the members, the WWG proposed necessary actions to be taken by member states to redress the effects of the crisis to women. They stated that other social groups affected by the crisis are key to a response that is harmonized with international standards and commitments to gender equality, women’s rights and human rights and empowerment.
هل يمكنني التواصل مع أي أحد إن كانت لدي أسئلة أو أمور تثير قلقي؟
إن كانت لديكم/ن أسئلة أو أمور تثير قلقكم/ن، الرجاء التوجه الينا عن طريق هذا النموذج وكتابة "استطلاع أين المال" في العنوان أو راسلنا على witm@awid.org
Can I submit a session proposal?
The call for session proposal is now closed.
We launched a Call for Activities on November 19 2019 and the last date to receive proposals was February 14, 2020.
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CSW69 spaces to watch out for
Learn more about upcoming CSW69 events that AWID is co-organizing
Why did AWID choose Taipei as the location for the Forum?
We see Taipei as the location in the Asia Pacific region that will best allow us to build that safe and rebelious space for our global feminist community.
Taipei offers a moderate degree of stability and safety for the diversity of Forum participants we will convene. It also has strong logistical capacities, and is accessible for many travellers (with a facilitated e-visa process for international conferences).
The local feminist movement is welcoming of the Forum and keen to engage with feminists from across the globe.
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What’s a feminist like you doing in a place like this?
A conversation on international advocacy and global governance
✉️ By registration only. Register here
📅 Friday, March 14, 2025
🕒 2.30pm EST
🏢 Blue Gallery, The Blue Building, 222 East 46th Street
🎙️Facilitated by: Anissa Daboussi, Manager, Advancing Universal Rights and Justice team
Organizer: SRI, AWID
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Preferred languages:
Boil them down to communications language preferences
Snippet WCFM Title Menu (EN)
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Radical Democracy and Climate Justice - the missing debate of COP30
As the world struggles with multiple intersecting crises, local communities and collectives of various kinds are resisting as also creating constructive alternatives.
📅 Wednesday, November 12, 2025
📍 Seminario Mar Nossa Sra Da Assunção, Pará, Brazil