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
Manal Tamimi | Snippet EN
Manal Tamimi is a Palestinian activist and human rights defender. She is a mother of four who holds a master’s degree in international humanitarian law. Due to her activism, she was arrested three times and got wounded more than once, including with live explosive bullets which are banned internationally. Her family is also a target: her children have been arrested and wounded with live ammunition more than once. The last incident was an assassination attempt of her son Muhammad who was shot in the chest, near the heart, a few weeks after his liberation from the occupation prisons where he had spent two years. Her philosophy on life: if I have to pay the price for being a Palestinian and not for a crime I have committed, I refuse to die in silence.
Snippet - CSW68 Intro
Reclaiming Feminist Power
This year, we, alongside feminist activists from across the world, will be at CSW68 in New York, to challenge capitalist, neoliberal narratives and false solutions around poverty, development and financing. Through in-person events, lives on our socials, an exhibit booth and more; we are showing up to convene, amplify and support the voices and participation of our members, partners and allies.
Learn more about our program this year below.
Mariam Mekiwi | Snippet EN
Mariam Mekiwi is a filmmaker and photographer from Alexandria and living and working in Berlin.
Snippet - Shines light - EN
Shines a light on the financial status of diverse feminist, women’s rights, gender justice, LBTQI+ and allied movements in all regions and all contexts
Hospital | Content Snippet EN
“Now might be a good time to rethink what a revolution can look like. Perhaps it doesn’t look like a march of angry, abled bodies in the streets. Perhaps it looks something more like the world standing still because all the bodies in it are exhausted—because care has to be prioritized before it’s too late.”
- Johanna Hedva (https://getwellsoon.labr.io/)
Hospitals are institutions, living sites of capitalism, and what gets played out when somebody is supposed to be resting is a microcosm of the larger system itself.
Institutions are set out to separate us from our care systems – we find ourselves isolated in structures that are rigidly hierarchical, and it often feels as if care is something done to us rather than given/taken as part of a conversation. Institutional care, because of its integration into capitalist demand, is silo-ed: one person is treating your leg and only your leg, another is treating your blood pressure, etc.
Photographer Mariam Mekiwi had to have surgery last month and documented the process. Her portraits of sanitized environments – neon white lights, rows after rows of repetitive structures – in a washed-out color palette reflect a place that was drained of life and movement. This was one of the ways Mariam kept her own spirit alive. It was a form of protest from within the confines of an institution she had to engage with.
The photos form a portrait of something incredibly vulnerable, because watching someone live through their own body’s breakdown is always a sacred reminder of our own fragility. It is also a reminder of the fragility of these care systems, which can be denied to us for a variety of reasons – from not having money to not being in a body that’s considered valuable enough, one that’s maybe too feminine, too queer or too brown.
Care experienced as disembodied and solitary, that is subject to revocation at any moment, doesn’t help us thrive. And it is very different from how human beings actually behave when they take care of each other. How different would our world look like if we committed to dismantling the current capitalist structures around our health? What would it look like if we radically reimagined it?
Snippet - WITM Our objectives - EN
Our research objectives
1 |
Provide AWID members, movement partners and funders with an updated, powerful, evidence-based, and action-oriented analysis of the resourcing realities of feminist movements and current state of the feminist funding ecosystem. |
2 |
Identify and demonstrate opportunities to shift more and better funding for feminist organizing, expose false solutions and disrupt trends that make funding miss and/or move against gender justice and intersectional feminist agendas. |
3 |
Articulate feminist visions, proposals and agendas for resourcing justice. |
Snippet Kohl - Panel | Liberated Land & Territories | AR
حلقة نقاش | الأرض والمناطق المُحرَّرة: محادثة عموم أفريقية
مع لوام كيدان ومريامة سونكو ويانيا صوفيا غرسون ڤالنسيا ونوسمة سيزاني
#5 - Sexting like a feminist Tweets Snippet AR
تقديم تحليل كفء للأجساد البحثيّة، يستوجب بالضرورة تسخيرًا شاملا لكافّة الأدوات الحميميّة…
أفضّل المقاربة التقاطعيّة لما تشتمل عليه من مداعبة ممنهجة باللسان والأصابع
I have responded to the survey but changed my mind and want our response to be withdrawn, what do I do?
If, for any reason, you want your response to be withdrawn and deleted, you have the right to do so. Please contact us via the form here, indicating “WITM Survey” as the title of your message, and we will withdraw and delete your response.
Our partners
This project is built in collaboration with:
Snippet - WITM To share - RU
Чтобы поделиться опытом финансирования в вашей организации
Snippet - WITM Start the survey 1 - PT
O inquérito está disponível em árabe, inglês, francês, português, russo e espanhol!
Snippet - WITM about research - AR
عن استطلاع "أين المال"
استطلاع "اين المال" (أين التمويل للتنظيمات النسوية) هو ركيزة أساسية للنسخة الثالثة لأبحاثنا الموجهة نحو العمل. سيتم بحث وتوسيع نتائج الاستطلاع من خلال المحادثات العميقة مع النشطاء/ الناشطات والممولين/ات وسيتم مقارنة النتائج مع تحليلات وبحوث أخرى عن وضع التمويل للحركات النسوية وحركات العدالة الجندرية.
سيتم نشر تقرير أين المال للتنظيمات النسوية في العام 
2026.
لمعرفة المزيد عن كيف تسلّط جمعية حقوق المرأة في التنمية الضوء على على تمويل التنظيمات النسوية أو ضدها، انظروا إلى قصة "أين المال" وتقارير سابقة هنا
Por que devo considerar responder ao inquérito?
Existem várias razões pelas quais a sua resposta ao inquérito WITM é importante. Por exemplo, tem a oportunidade de partilhar a sua experiência vivida com a mobilização de financiamento para apoiar a sua organização; de reivindicar o seu poder como especialista sobre como o dinheiro circula e os bolsos em que entra; e de contribuir para a defesa coletiva e consistente junto de financiadores para mover mais recursos de maior qualidade. Ao longo das últimas duas décadas, o inquérito WITM da AWID tem-se revelado um recurso fundamental para ativistas e financiadores. Convidamo-lo a juntar-se a nós na sua terceira edição para destacar o estado efetivo do financiamento, desafiar soluções falsas e apontar a forma como o financiamento precisa de mudar para que os movimentos prosperem e enfrentem os desafios complexos do nosso tempo.
AWID IN 2014: Strengthening Women’s Rights Organizing Around the World
AWID is very pleased to share our 2014 Annual Report.
From building knowledge on women’s rights issues to amplifying responses to violence against women human rights defenders (WHRDs), our work last year continued to strengthen feminist and women’s rights movements across the world.
Get learn how we built the capacity of our members and broader constituency, pushed hard to keep women’s rights on the agenda of major international development and human rights processes, and helped increase coverage of women’s rights issues and organizing through the media. You'll find a panoramic sampling of our projects and some concrete numbers demonstrating our impact.
Collaboration is at the heart of all that we do, and we look forward to another year of working together to take our movements to the next level.
A sneak peak inside the report
Despite an increasingly challenging panorama, there are important signs of hope for advancing women’s rights agendas. Women’s rights activists remain crucial in creating openings to demand structural change, sustaining their communities, opposing violence and holding the line on key achievements. And there are important opportunities to influence new actors and to mobilize greater resources to support women’s rights organizations.
In this context, strong collective action and organizing among women’s rights activists remains essential.
Our impact
- We built knowledge on women’s rights issues
- We strengthened our online community
- We helped improve responses to violence against WHRDs
- We strengthened movement building through collaborative working processes
- We pushed hard to keep women’s human rights on the agendas of major international development processes
- We helped women’s rights organizations better influence donors and increased visibility and understanding of women’s rights organizations among the donor community
- We contributed towards increased and improved coverage of women’s rights issues and organizing in mainstream media
I am sincerely thrilled by AWID’s accomplishments since 1982 and hope to be able to pay at least a modest contribution to its hard work for the benefit of women and situation of gender equality.” — Aleksandra Miletic-Santic, Bosnia Herzegovina
Our Members
Read the full report
نحن نعيد إعطاء المال لشركائنا/شريكاتنا ونعرّف عن أنفسنا كنسويات و\ أو صندوق نسائي. هل علينا تعبئة الاستطلاع؟
كلا. نقدّر عملكم/ن لكننا لا نطلب في هذه المرحلة من الصناديق النسوية والنسائية تعبئة الاستطلاع. نشجعكم/ن على مشاركة الاستطلاع مع شركائكم/ن و شبكاتكم/ن النسوية.
Ritu
Ritu is a feminist technologist who brings her experience in the non-profit sector, driven by a passion for utilizing innovative approaches to finding feminist technological solutions. Holding a Master's in Technology in Computer Applications from the Indian Institute of Technology, her role at AWID encompasses a diverse range of responsibilities. From overseeing digital security and server management to database administration, capacity building, technology evaluation, software implementation and cloud solutions, Ritu ensures that AWID's IT infrastructure is resilient and effective. Prior to joining AWID, she played a pivotal role in advancing technological initiatives in the Health Promotion and Environment sectors, fueled by her dedication to leveraging technology for social good.
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На данный момент опрос в KOBO доступен на арабском, английском, французском, португальском, русском и испанском языках. В начале опроса у вас будет возможность выбрать нужный вам язык.
Joanne Kobuthi-Kuria
Joanne is an African feminist who is passionate about dismantling gender inequalities on the African continent. Joanne has worked with a number of global organizations, media and think tanks including Amnesty International, Wrthy, Local Development Research Institute, BBC, East African Community (EAC) among others.She serves on a couple of boards including Freely in hope-an NGO based in Kenya and Zambia that seeks to equip survivors and advocates to lead in ending sexual violence and Msingi Trust-a movement of activists that meet at the confluence of faith and human rights. She has a Masters in Business Administration, Masters of Public Policy and a Bachelor of Laws. She is a book junkie with a penchant for fiction.