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

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 Union Otras Photo Panel (EN)

A panel of 13 people standing behind a conference chair. On the table there are sheets of papers, microphones and bottles of water. Behind them you can see a white wall and black courtains.

Members of the OTRAS union

#3 - Sexting like a feminist Tweets Snippet AR

بصراحة…

Image of a tweet with a gif of a man saying "Yes daddy". Text says: No one: (blank). Me: Bae I wanna squeeze your ass like I wanna squeeze misogynists out of corporate hierarchies.

رغبتي في الانقضاض على جسدك تعادل رغبتي بالانقضاض على كراهية النساء المتجذرة في التسلسلات الهرمية للشركات

Snippet FEA Intro Acknowledgments (EN)

We would like to thank the Amar.ela collective of women feminists activists and creatives who made this series possible, and especially Natalia Mallo (the team’s octopus) for her support and accompaniment throughout this journey.

We also extend our deepest gratitude and admiration to all the collectives and people who participated in this project, and we thank them for sharing their time, wisdom, dreams and hopes with us. We thank you for making this world a more just, feminist and sustainable one.

We hope the rest of the world will be as inspired by their stories as we are.

Snippet Feminist Propositions for a Just Economy EN

AWID, the Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL), and the African Women's Development and Communication Network (FEMNET), offers this think piece to challenge mainstream understandings of development and put forward initial propositions for a feminist agenda for development, economic and gender justice.

Learn more about where this project comes from


The propositions

These propositions are intended to be just that - proposals, to be discussed, debated, added to, taken apart, adapted, adopted, and even to inspire others.

Emilsen Manyoma

Snippet Forum Quoate Jac s m Kee, Malaysia (EN)

There is nothing like being in a shared space, exchanging body energies,... seeing the world and doing something together. Events like the Forum are among the strongest of the global feminist movement.
- Jac s m Kee, Malaysia

What about the visas?

We are acutely aware of the practical hurdles and emotional distress associated with international travel, particularly from the Global South. AWID is working with TCEB (the Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau) to support Forum participants with acquiring visas. More information about this visa assistance will be available upon registration, including contact information for where and how to apply.

CFA 2023 - Hybrid like never before: in person - EN

Hybrid like never before

For the first time, the AWID Forum offers three modes of participation

In-person

Participants will come together in Bangkok, Thailand. We can’t wait!

Clone of CFA 2023 - Hybrid like never before: in person - EN

In-person

Participants will come together in Bangkok, Thailand. We can’t wait!

AWID IN 2015: Building Collective Impact

In 2015 AWID grew and diversified.

We ramped up preparations for the 13th AWID international Forum, focused a lot of energy on the Post 2015 Development Agenda and Financing for Development processes, and continued the core work of our priority areas:


A sneak peak inside the report

The context

  • We continue witnessing the rapid breakdown in democracy and democratic institutions, with spaces for dissent shrinking.
  • Multiple and concurrent systemic crises (energy, food, finance and climate) continue to deepen inequalities and pose major challenges.
  • Corporations are a leading power in determining the development agenda.
  • Violence against WHRDs remains an urgent problem.
  • Religious fundamentalisms are pervasive and increasingly powerful.
  • New forms of online gender-based violence have emerged.

In response, we are moving out of our silos.

Increasingly, women’s rights and other movements worldwide are articulating the systemic and intersectional nature of these and other problems. We are making better connections with the agendas of other social and environmental movements for solidarity, alliance building and collective responses. We are also seeing greater visibility of these movements fighting for justice on the ground.


Our Impact

  • For effective strategizing and advocacy, we need facts
  • To exchange knowledge and join hands in solidarity, we need  a strong online community
  • To build our collective power, we need to work together
  • To influence international processes,  we need to increase our access and voice
  • To reposition power we need to give visibility and emphasize  the important role that feminist and women’s rights movements  are already playing
     

Our Members

As at 31st December, 2015 we had:


Read the full report

 

CFA 2023 - Call for Activities is live- thai

เปิดรับสมัครกิจกรรมแล้ว!

กำหนดเส้นตายในการปิดรับรายละเอียดกิจกรรมใหม่ : 1 กุมภาพันธ์ 2567

 

ด้วยเจตนารมณ์ของประเด็นสาระหลักของเวทีนี้ เราจึงขอเชิญท่านร่วมเสนอหัวข้อและรูปแบบของกิจกรรม อันหลากหลายซึ่งจะ

  • เอื้อให้เกิดการเชื่อมต่อและการมีปฏิสัมพันธ์อย่างแท้จริงระหว่างผู้เข้าร่วมประชุม
  • ส่งเสริมการเยียวยาและฟื้นฟูในรูปแบบต่างๆ ทั้งส่วนบุคคล ชุมชน และในขบวนการเคลื่อนไหว
  • สร้างแรงบันดาลใจและความท้าทายที่ทำให้เราเติบโตร่วมกันในฐานะชุมชนและขบวนการ เคลื่อนไหว

Isabel Marler

Biography

Isabel is a feminist from the United Kingdom with over a decade of experience in feminist responses to fascisms, fundamentalisms, and anti-rights trends. At AWID, her work centers on knowledge-building and has included leading the production of the Rights at Risk series in collaboration with the Observatory on the Universality of Rights (OURs). She holds a Master’s degree in Gender Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and previously worked with Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML). She is passionate about cross-movement work, movement-centered knowledge-building, and the use of creative expression to disrupt systems of oppression. Outside of work, Isabel is active in various disability justice spaces for collective care, learning, and advocacy.

Position
Advancing Universal Rights and Justice Lead
Add to stories
Off

Guadalupe Campanur Tapia

Guadalupe was an environmental activist involved in the fight against crime in Cherán, Mexico.

Guadalupe helped to overthrow the local government in April 2011 and participated in local security patrols including those in municipal forests.  She was among the Indigenous leaders of Cherán, who called on people to defend their forests against illegal and merciless logging. Her work for seniors, children, and workers made her an icon in her community.

She was killed in Chilchota, Mexico about 30 kilometers north of her hometown of Cherá.

 


 

Guadalupe Campanur Tapia, Mexico

Forum 2024 - FAQ - Will you be opening CFA - EN

Yes! Please read the Call for Activities and apply here. Deadline is 15 January 2024

Sanyu Awori

Biography

Sanyu is a Pan-African feminist based in Nairobi, Kenya. She has spent the last decade supporting labour, feminist and human rights movements advocating for corporate accountability, economic justice and gender justice. She has worked with the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, IWRAW Asia Pacific and the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative. She has a Master’s of Laws in Human Rights Law and a Bachelor’s of Laws from the University of Nottingham. Her writing has been published in the Business and Human Rights Journal, Human Rights Law Review, Open Global Rights, Open Democracy and more. In her free time, she loves walking in the forest and chasing butterflies.

Position
Manager, Building Feminist Economies
Add to stories
Off