Jean-Marc Ferré | Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
A general view of participants at the 16th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland.

Special Focus

AWID is an international, feminist, membership organisation committed to achieving gender equality, sustainable development and women’s human rights

Human Rights Council (HRC)

The Human Rights Council (HRC) is the key intergovernmental body within the United Nations system responsible for the promotion and protection of all human rights around the globe. It holds three regular sessions a year: in March, June and September. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is the secretariat for the HRC.

The HRC works by:

  • Debating and passing resolutions on global human rights issues and human rights situations in particular countries

  • Examining complaints from victims of human rights violations or activist organizations on behalf of victims of human rights violations

  • Appointing independent experts (known as “Special Procedures”) to review human rights violations in specific countries and examine and further global human rights issues

  • Engaging in discussions with experts and governments on human rights issues

  • Assessing the human rights records of all UN Member States every four and a half years through the Universal Periodic Review

Learn more about the HRC


AWID works with feminist, progressive and human rights partners to share key knowledge, convene civil society dialogues and events, and influence negotiations and outcomes of the session.

With our partners, our work will:

◾️ Monitor, track and analyze anti-rights actors, discourses and strategies and their impact on resolutions

◾️ Raise awareness of the findings of the 2017 and 2021 OURs Trends Reports.

◾️Support the work of feminist UN experts in the face of backlash and pressure

◾️Advocate for state accountability
 
◾️ Work with feminist movements and civil society organizations to advance rights related to gender and sexuality.
 

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Joanne Kobuthi-Kuria

Biography

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.

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Manager, Membership and Constituency Engagement
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Recursos

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The Bold
Production and entrepreneurship

About the AWID International Forum

More than an event!

The AWID International Forum is a truly global space that gives participants an opportunity to network, build alliances, celebrate, and learn in a stimulating, emotive and safe atmosphere. 

AWID International Forum in Costa de Sauipe, Brazil, 2016

More and more, we are trying to bring the Forum process outside of the convening’s borders. Engaging with partners and deepening relationships all year round, connecting with local movements to better understand problems and co-create solutions. The Forum event itself, held every three to four years in a different region of the world, is just a crystallization of all these alliances that we are building as part of our work.

The AWID Forum dissolves our inner and external boundaries, fosters deep discussion, personal and professional growth, and strengthens our movements for gender justice and women’s rights.

As a convening, it is a response to the urgency to promote stronger and more coordinated engagement and action by feminists, women’s rights and other social justice advocates, organizations and movements. We also believe that the Forum is more than just an event – it can facilitate a process to influence thinking and set agendas for feminist movements and other related actors.

Evolving from a national conference of around 800 people, the event now brings together around 2000 feminists, community leaders, social justice activists, and donor agencies from around the world. 

The 14th AWID International Forum will take place 11-14 January 2021 in Taipei, Taiwan.

Find out more!


The past Forums

2016 - Feminist Futures: Building Collective Power for Rights and Justice (Costa de Sauipe, Brazil)

Participants at the Black Feminisms Forum in Brazil, 2016

Given the complex world that we face today, the 2016 AWID Forum did not focus on a particular “issue”, but rather on creating more effective ways of working together!

Despite the challenging contexts in which the 2016 Forum took place (the Zika epidemic, a strike by Brazilian foreign-service workers, the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff and subsequent turmoil), it succeeded in bringing together over 1800 participants from 120 countries and territories across all regions of the world.

What happened at the 13th AWID international Forum:

  • For 96% of participants who responded to the post Forum evaluation survey, the Forum was a major source of inspiration and energy.

  • 98% of participants considered it an important convening space for feminist movements and expressed hope that AWID continues to organize forums.

  • 59% of Forum evaluation survey respondents declared to be very satisfied with the Forum and 34% somewhat satisfied.

  • Over 150 sessions were delivered in different formats on a variety of topics ranging from bodily integrity and freedoms, to gender-based violence in the workplace, to strategies for building collective power.

  • The first-time Black Feminisms Forum (BFF), held just before the main AWID Forum, brought together 250 Black feminists from all over the world to co-create a powerful space to build and strengthen ongoing, intergenerational, transnational connections

Read more about what the 2016 AWID Forum achieved:

Download the Forum evaluation report


2012 - Transforming Economic Power to Advance Women's Rights and Justice (Istambul, Turkey)

AWID International Forum, in Cape Town, South Africa, 2008

The 12th AWID Forum was the largest and most diverse AWID Forum to date, bringing together 2239 women’s rights activists from 141 countries. Of these participants, around 65% were from the Global South and close to 15% were young women under 30, and 75% attended an AWID Forum for their first time.

The Forum program focused on transforming economic power to advance women’s rights and justice and featured over 170 different kinds of sessions including feminist economics toolbox skills-building sessions, breakout sessions representing all 10 Forum themes, in-depth sessions, and solidarity roundtables. 

Building on the momentum of the 2012 Forum, we transformed the website into a resource and learning Hub, which builds on the content generated by participants by featuring multi-media resources on all Forum components. 

Visit the 2012 Forum web archive


All AWID Forums

  • 2016: Feminist Futures: Building Collective Power for Rights and Justice (Costa de Sauipe, Brazil). Read the 2016 Forum Evaluation report
  • 2012: Transforming Economic Power to Advance Women's Rights and Justice (Istanbul, Turkey)
  • 2008: The Power of Movements (Cape Town, South Africa). Read our 2008 Forum Report
  • 2005: How does change happen? (Bangkok, Thailand)
  • 2002: Reinventing Globalization (Guadalajara, Mexico)
  • 1999: Leading Solutions for Equality and Justice (US)
  • 1996: Beyond Beijing From Words to Action (US)
  • 1993: Joining Forces to Further Shared Visions (US)
  • 1991: Working Together/Learning Together: A South North Dialogue (US)
  • 1989/1990: Global Em-Powerment for Women (US)
  • 1987: Moving Forward: Innovations in Development Policy, Action and Research (US)
  • 1985: Women Creating Wealth; Transforming Economic Development (US)
  • 1983: ‘Women in Development’ (Washington D.C, US)

Maria Olivo

Biography

María es diseñadora gráfica y comunicadora visual. Ha trabajado con ONG e instituciones por los derechos humanos como Profamilia y OXFAM. Como mujer del Sur Global, se siente especialmente atraída a usar sus competencias para trabajar con organizaciones que ayudan a proteger el bienestar, así como los derechos de millones de niñas y mujeres de América Latina.

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Coordinadora, Comunicaciones Digitales
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Je suis activiste à titre individuel, je ne travaille avec aucun groupe, organisation et/ou mouvement à l’heure actuelle, est-ce que je devrais participer à cette enquête?

Non, nous reconnaissons l’importance de votre travail, mais nous ne collectons pas les réponses fournies à titre individuel à l’heure actuelle.

Snippet FEA Nous Sommes la Solution (EN)

The logo of We Are The Solution with green silhouettes of four rural woment

Nous Sommes la Solution is a rural women 's movement for food sovereignty in West Africa. Founded originally as a campaign against hyper-industrialized agriculture, Nous Sommes la Solution has grown into a movement of more than 500 rural women’s associations from Burkina Faso, Senegal, Ghana, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Mali and Guinea.

Together, this women-led movement is building and strengthening food and seed sovereignty across West Africa. They feed communities, strengthen local economies, amplify the knowledge of women farmers and mitigate the devastating effects of climate change through agroecological practices. They also organize workshops, forums and community radio broadcasts to share their messages, their traditional knowledges and agroecological practices across rural communities.

In collaboration with universities and public research centers, Nous Sommes la Solution works towards restoring traditional Indigenous varieties of rice (a staple food in West Africa) and promoting local food economies based on agroecological principles, influencing national policy-making, all the while supporting women in creating farming associations and collectively owning and managing farmland.

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Leticia Eulalia Mary Mukasa- Kikonyogo

Leticia était une avocate et juge ougandaise.

Avant de prendre sa retraite, elle a occupé de nombreux postes de haut niveau, notamment celui de membre de la cour d’appel et juge en chef adjointe de l’Ouganda. Elle a été la première femme ougandaise à occuper le poste de magistrat en chef entre 1973 et 1986 et la première femme à être nommée juge à la Haute Cour de justice en 1986.

Elle fut l'une des premières femmes à recevoir le titre de chevalier pontifical de l'histoire de l'Église catholique en Afrique. Elle est morte d'une crise cardiaque.

 


 

Leticia Eulalia Mary Mukasa- Kikonyogo, Uganda

Leila Hessini

Biography

Leila est une dirigeante, défenseuse et conseillère féministe transnationale qui compte plus de 25 ans d'expérience dans la promotion des droits humains, de l'égalité des genres et de la santé et des droits sexuels et reproductifs, ainsi que de la justice au niveau local et mondial. Née en Algérie, Leila a fait ses études aux États-Unis, en France et au Maroc. Au cours de sa carrière professionnelle, elle a vécu et travaillé en Afrique, en Europe et aux États-Unis.  

Elle a occupé le poste de vice-présidente des programmes au Fonds mondial pour les femmes (GFW) pendant plus de cinq ans, où elle a supervisé son octroi de subventions stratégiques, le renforcement des mouvements, le plaidoyer mondial et les collaborations philanthropiques.  Au sein du GFW, elle a doublé le montant de ses subventions pour atteindre plus de 17 millions de dollars, a lancé son travail sur les mouvements et les crises féministes et axées sur le genre, a créé un programme pour les adolescentes dirigé par un conseil consultatif de filles et a dirigé son travail de plaidoyer philanthropique.  Avant cela, elle a fait partie de l'équipe de direction d'Ipas de 2002 à 2016, où elle a publié de nombreux articles sur le droit à l'avortement et la justice, dirigé des actions de plaidoyer mondiales et établi des partenariats avec des groupes féministes travaillant sur l'autogestion, la mobilisation communautaire et la réduction de la stigmatisation autour de l'intégrité corporelle et des droits sexuels et reproductifs.  Alors qu’elle était basée en Afrique du Nord, elle a cofondé une société de conseil féministe intersectionnelle, Strategic Analysis for Gender Equality (SAGE), qui travaillait sur les intersections entre l'économie, le genre et les droits sexuels et reproductifs, et a dirigé le travail national, régional et mondial sur le genre du bureau du Caire de la Fondation Ford pendant 5 ans. 

Leila dispose d'une vaste expérience dans les domaines de l'éducation populaire, le plaidoyer, l'organisation à but non lucratif, le développement de conseils d'administration, la philanthropie et le suivi et l'évaluation. C'est une communicatrice compétente qui privilégie une approche intersectionnelle pour centrer et amplifier les voix et les expériences des personnes les plus marginalisées.  Elle a reçu la bourse Op-ed Public Voices de la Fondation Ford et a été boursière Fulbright au Maroc.  Ses publications couvrent un large éventail de sujets, notamment les approches féministes et décoloniales de la philanthropie, la promotion des droits humains des femmes dans les contextes majoritairement musulmans, les stratégies féministes visant à promouvoir la justice reproductive, la promotion du recours des femmes aux avortements autogérés et la lutte contre la stigmatisation et la discrimination. 

 Leila est actuellement coprésidente du conseil du Center for Constitutional Rights et membre du conseil de Highlander Research and Education. Elle fait également partie du conseil de responsabilité du Numun Feminist Technology Fund et du comité consultatif de la Plateforme des femmes défenseuses des droits humains d'Afrique.  Elle a précédemment siégé aux conseils d'administration de SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, du Réseau mondial des femmes pour les droits sur la reproduction, du Fonds mondial pour les femmes, du Safe Abortion Access Fund et du Reproductive Health Technologies Project. Elle a été élue trésorière et membre du comité exécutif du conseil d'administration de Prospera et a siégé au comité directeur du Fonds Fenomenal pendant quatre ans. Leila est titulaire d'une maîtrise en santé publique et d'une maîtrise en études sur la région du Moyen-Orient et de l'Afrique du Nord, a étudié le droit islamique au Maroc et a poursuivi des études doctorales en sociologie en France. Elle a étudié l'arabe et l'allemand et parle couramment le français et l'anglais.

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Co-trésorier
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Can I fill the survey outside KOBO and share my responses with you via email?

Unless there are accessibility issues and/or you are filling the survey in other languages, we strongly encourage you to use KOBO for WITM standardized data collection and analysis.

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¿Cuáles son los Objetivos de Nous Sommes la Solution?

Defending LGBTQI Rights

Student, Writer, Leader, Advocate. Each of the four women honored below had their own way of activism but what they had in common is that they all promoted and defended Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer and Intersex rights. Join us in remembering and honoring these Women Human Rights Defenders, their work and legacy by sharing the memes below and tweeting by using the hashtags #WHRDTribute and #16Days. 


Please click on each image below to see a larger version and download as a file

 

Asma Jahangir

Asma was a leading Pakistani rights activist, fearless critic of the military’s interference in politics and a staunch defender of the rule of law.

She was the founding chairwoman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent group, and was a trustee of the International Crisis Group. She won international awards and served as the United Nations rapporteur on human rights and extrajudicial killings.

She is remembered fondly by colleagues and friends at AWID

“With her life, Asma rewrote the history that many of us were told as women. Asma changed the world. She changed it in Pakistan, and she changed it in our imaginations."

 


 

Asma Jahangir, Pakistan