Over the past few years, a troubling new trend at the international human rights level is being observed, where discourses on ‘protecting the family’ are being employed to defend violations committed against family members, to bolster and justify impunity, and to restrict equal rights within and to family life.
The campaign to "Protect the Family" is driven by ultra-conservative efforts to impose "traditional" and patriarchal interpretations of the family, and to move rights out of the hands of family members and into the institution of ‘the family’.
“Protection of the Family” efforts stem from:
rising traditionalism,
rising cultural, social and religious conservatism and
sentiment hostile to women’s human rights, sexual rights, child rights and the rights of persons with non-normative gender identities and sexual orientations.
Since 2014, a group of states have been operating as a bloc in human rights spaces under the name “Group of Friends of the Family”, and resolutions on “Protection of the Family” have been successfully passed every year since 2014.
This agenda has spread beyond the Human Rights Council. We have seen regressive language on “the family” being introduced at the Commission on the Status of Women, and attempts made to introduce it in negotiations on the Sustainable Development Goals.
Our Approach
AWID works with partners and allies to jointly resist “Protection of the Family” and other regressive agendas, and to uphold the universality of human rights.
In response to the increased influence of regressive actors in human rights spaces, AWID joined allies to form the Observatory on the Universality of Rights (OURs). OURs is a collaborative project that monitors, analyzes, and shares information on anti-rights initiatives like “Protection of the Family”.
Rights at Risk, the first OURs report, charts a map of the actors making up the global anti-rights lobby, identifies their key discourses and strategies, and the effect they are having on our human rights.
The report outlines “Protection of the Family” as an agenda that has fostered collaboration across a broad range of regressive actors at the UN. It describes it as: “a strategic framework that houses “multiple patriarchal and anti-rights positions, where the framework, in turn, aims to justify and institutionalize these positions.”
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Toolbox for COP30 Organizing
The 2024 AWID Feminist Calendar
This calendar invites us to immerse ourselves in the inspiring world of feminist artistry. Each month, as it gently unfolds, brings forth the vivid artwork of feminist and queer artists from our communities. Their creations are not mere images; they are profound narratives that resonate with the experiences of struggle, triumph, and undying courage that define our collective quest. These visual stories, bursting with color and emotion, serve to bridge distances and weave together our diverse experiences, bringing us closer in our shared missions.
This calendar is our call to you: Use it, print it, share it. Let it be a daily companion in your journey, a constant reminder of our interconnectedness and our shared visions for a better world.
Let it inspire you, as it inspires us, to keep moving forward together.
Veena Singh is a Fiji Islander, feminist, and woman of colour. Born and raised in a small rural town in Fiji, she draws strength from her rich mixed heritage (her mother is an Indigenous Fijian woman and her father is Fijian of Indian descent). Veena’s identity and lived experiences deeply inform her commitment to justice, equity, and inclusion. With over two decades of experience in human rights, gender equality, community development, and social inclusion, Veena is a passionate advocate for shifting power to create transformative change and for building an “economy of kindness”. Her work spans diverse areas including community development; women, peace and security; social policy; human rights; and policy advocacy.
Veena is deeply committed to advancing inclusion, peace and justice, sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), climate justice, transitional justice, and human rights. She brings a wealth of experience working across grassroots networks, international organizations, and government institutions, always centering community and locally led approaches and feminist principles.
Outside of her ‘office life’, Veena is an environmental advocate, mental health champion, and writer. She is a mum to 11 cats, a saree wearer, and a lover of snail-mails and postcards. A thoughtful observer of feminist movements in Fiji and the Pacific, Veena is on a personal journey to “decolonise the mind and the self through radical self-reflection.” Above all, she is driven by a desire and dream to produce relatable, resonant writing that connects with the Pacific diaspora and amplifies voices from the margins.
CFA 2023 - Hybrid like never before: in person - FR
Hybride comme jamais auparavant
Pour la première fois, le Forum de l'AWID propose trois modes de participation :
En personne
Les participant.e.s se réuniront à Bangkok, en Thaïlande. Nous sommes impatient.e.s de vous y retrouver!
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A esta campaña la llevan adelante ocho organizaciones aliadas de todos los continentes que elaboran alternativas feministas a la crisis climática, el ecocidio y el genocidio.
More than just an event, the AWID Forum is part of our Feminist Realities Journey, with many spaces to come together, online and offline, for sharing, discussing, strategizing and co-creating feminist realities.
Tributo: Recordamos a lxs activistas feministas que cambiaron nuestro mundo
En esta galería en línea, rendimos homenaje a más de 450 valientes feministas y activistas de todas las regiones del mundo y 88 países que ya no están con nosotrxs.
Lxs traemos a todxs a nuestra memoria colectiva y llevamos su legado de lucha como nuestra antorcha en los movimientos feministas y por los derechos de las mujeres.
As part of AWID’s Feminist Realities journey, we invite you to explore our newly launched Feminist Film Club: a collection of short and feature films selected by feminist curators and storytellers from around the world, including Jess X. Snow (Asia/Pacific), Gabrielle Tesfaye (Africa/African Diaspora), and Esra Ozban (South West Asia, North Africa). Alejandra Laprea is curating the Latin & Central American program, which we’ll launch in September during AWID’s Crear, Résister, Transform: A Festival for Feminist Movements. In the meantime, look out for announcements on special films screenings and conversations with filmmakers!
This year we are honoring 18 Women Human Rights Defenders from the Latin America and the Caribbean region. Alone 15 of those were murdered, among which 6 are journalists and 4 LGBTQI and/or sex workers’ rights defenders. Please join us in commemorating the life and work of these women by sharing the memes below with your colleagues, friends and networks and by tweeting using the hashtag #AWIDTribute.
Our individual and institutional members come from ALL regions of the world and 163 countries. Our latest members join us from France, South Sudan, the United Kingdom, and Lebanon. All of our members bring with them a rich and diverse array of perspectives, experiences, knowledge, energy and inspiration!
Did you know about our weekly member profiles?
One of the benefits of being an AWID member, is having your story featured on awid.org, in our newsletters which go out to 35,000 subscribers, and via our social media channels which have over 60,000 followers.
If you have any difficulties and require support with the sign-up process, please do not hesitate to contact us at membership@awid.org
What Our Members Say
"We have found AWID to be a very exciting network and we are involved in many of its platforms." - Engabu Za Tooro (AWID institutional member)
"I am looking forward to a fruitful engagement with the team. Feeling great. Thanks for accepting me as a member." - R. Chakraborty (AWID individual member)
"Thank you so much AWID, your work is tremendous. I really appreciated your efforts." - E. Khan (AWID individual member)
Contesting the premise that a country’s economy must always ‘grow or die’, de-growth propositions come to debunk the centrality of growth measured by increase in Gross domestic product (GDP).
Definition
A de-growth model proposes a shift towards a lower and sustainable level of production and consumption. In essence, shrinking the economic system to leave more space for human cooperation and ecosystems.
The proposal includes
Downsizing resource-, energy- and emission-intensive superfluous production, particularly in the North (e.g. the automotive and military industries)
Directing investments instead into the care sector, social infrastructure and environmental restoration
Feminist perspective
Feminist perspectives within de-growth theory and practice argue that it also needs to redefine and revalidate unpaid and paid, care and market labour to overcome traditional gender stereotypes as well as the prevailing wage gaps and income inequalities that devalue care work.
Learn more about this proposition
In “The Future WE Want: Occupy development” Christa Wichterich argues that in order to break up the hegemonic logic of unfettered growth and quick returns on investment, three cornerstones of another development paradigm must combine: care, commons and sufficiency in production and consumption.
Equitable, Ecological Degrowth: Feminist Contributions by Patricia Perkins suggests developing effective alternative indicators of well-being, including social and economic equity and work-time data, to demonstrate the importance of unpaid work and services for the economy and provide a mechanism for giving credit to those responsible.
Crear | Résister | Transform: A Walkthrough of the Festival! - smaller snippet
Crear | Résister | Transform : visite guidée du Festival
Alors que le capitalisme hétéropatriarcal s’acharne à nous contraindre au consumérisme et à la conformité, nous constatons que nos luttes sont cloisonnées et séparées par des frontières aussi bien physiques que virtuelles.
Con más de 30 años de experiencia en finanzas, Christine ha dedicado su carrera a fomentar misiones sin fines de lucro en todo el mundo. Sus contribuciones incluyen desempeñarse como tesorera en la junta de una ONG . Se sumó a AWID en 2007 como Fiscalizadora y, en 2023, asumió el rol de Directora de Finanzas. En su tiempo libre, disfruta de viajar, la jardinería y el senderismo.
Ekaete Judith Umoh is an international disability rights advocate and inclusive development expert with astute analysis of issues regarding gender, disability and inclusive development. Her dream is to see increased visibility of women and girls with disabilities in the global feminist movement, as well as in all development efforts around the world.
Ekaete enjoys activism and politics, and went on to become the first elected female President of the Joint National Association of Persons with Disabilities (JONAPWD) in Nigeria, where she led Organizations of Persons with disabilities in the struggle to sign the Nigerian Disability Bill into Law in 2019, after over 17 years of consistent advocacy. Thereafter, she joined CBM Global as a pioneer Country Director and led her team for about 3 years, contributing towards ending the circle of poverty and disability in Nigeria. Aside from disability activism, Ekaete has served as consultant to several development agencies, providing technical assistance on disability inclusion in program and project design.
Enciende tu fuego feminista leyendo nuestras investigaciones y publicaciones varias sobre financiamiento, defensoras de derechos humanos, construcción de movimientos, fundamentalismos, justicia económica, seguimiento y evaluación feminista y más
