Alma Nosmas
Women Human Rights Defenders
WHRDs are self-identified women and lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LBTQI) people and others who defend rights and are subject to gender-specific risks and threats due to their human rights work and/or as a direct consequence of their gender identity or sexual orientation.
WHRDs are subject to systematic violence and discrimination due to their identities and unyielding struggles for rights, equality and justice.
The WHRD Program collaborates with international and regional partners as well as the AWID membership to raise awareness about these risks and threats, advocate for feminist and holistic measures of protection and safety, and actively promote a culture of self-care and collective well being in our movements.
Risks and threats targeting WHRDs
WHRDs are exposed to the same types of risks that all other defenders who defend human rights, communities, and the environment face. However, they are also exposed to gender-based violence and gender-specific risks because they challenge existing gender norms within their communities and societies.
By defending rights, WHRDs are at risk of:
- Physical assault and death
- Intimidation and harassment, including in online spaces
- Judicial harassment and criminalization
- Burnout
A collaborative, holistic approach to safety
We work collaboratively with international and regional networks and our membership
- to raise awareness about human rights abuses and violations against WHRDs and the systemic violence and discrimination they experience
- to strengthen protection mechanisms and ensure more effective and timely responses to WHRDs at risk
We work to promote a holistic approach to protection which includes:
- emphasizing the importance of self-care and collective well being, and recognizing that what care and wellbeing mean may differ across cultures
- documenting the violations targeting WHRDs using a feminist intersectional perspective;
- promoting the social recognition and celebration of the work and resilience of WHRDs ; and
- building civic spaces that are conducive to dismantling structural inequalities without restrictions or obstacles
Our Actions
We aim to contribute to a safer world for WHRDs, their families and communities. We believe that action for rights and justice should not put WHRDs at risk; it should be appreciated and celebrated.
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Promoting collaboration and coordination among human rights and women’s rights organizations at the international level to strengthen responses concerning safety and wellbeing of WHRDs.
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Supporting regional networks of WHRDs and their organizations, such as the Mesoamerican Initiative for WHRDs and the WHRD Middle East and North Africa Coalition, in promoting and strengthening collective action for protection - emphasizing the establishment of solidarity and protection networks, the promotion of self-care, and advocacy and mobilization for the safety of WHRDs;
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Increasing the visibility and recognition of WHRDs and their struggles, as well as the risks that they encounter by documenting the attacks that they face, and researching, producing, and disseminating information on their struggles, strategies, and challenges:
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Mobilizing urgent responses of international solidarity for WHRDs at risk through our international and regional networks, and our active membership.
Related Content
Mirna Teresa Suazo Martínez
Mirna Teresa Suazo Martínez era parte de la comunidad garífuna (afrodescendiente e indígena) de Masca, en la costa norte del Caribe de Honduras. Era una líder comunitaria, y una ferviente defensora del territorio indígena, tierra que fue vulnerada cuando el Instituto Nacional Agrario de Honduras otorgó licencias territoriales a gente ajena a la comunidad.
Este acto deplorable derivó en repetidos acosos, abusos y violencia contra la comunidad de Masca, dado que los intereses económicos de diferentes grupos se unieron a los de las fuerzas armadas y las autoridades hondureñas. Según la Organización Fraternal Negra Hondureña (OFRANEH), la estrategia de estos grupos es expulsar y exterminar a la población indígena.
«Masca, la comunidad Garífuna localizada junto al valle del Cuyamel, forma parte de la zona de influencia de una de las supuestas ciudades modelo, situación que ha disparado las presiones territoriales a lo largo de la costa Garífuna.» - OFRANEH, 8 de septiembre de 2019
Mirna Teresa, presidenta del Patronato de la comunidad de Masca en Omoa, también rechazaba con firmeza la construcción de dos plantas hidroeléctricas sobre el río que lleva el mismo nombre que su comunidad, Masca.
«La comunidad garífuna atribuye el agravamiento de la situación en su región a su oposición contra la explotación turística, el monocultivo de palma africana y el narcotráfico, al mismo tiempo que busca construir una vida alternativa a través del cultivo del coco y de otros productos de autoconsumo.» - Voces Feministas, 10 de septiembre de 2019
Mirna Teresa fue asesinada el 8 de septiembre de 2019 en su restaurante «Champa los Gemelos».
Fue una de las seis defensoras garífunas asesinadas solo entre septiembre y octubre de 2019. Según OFRANEH, las autoridades no han investigado estos crímenes.
«En el caso de las comunidades Garífunas, buena parte de los homicidios están relacionados con la tenencia y el manejo de la tierra. No obstante, las rencillas entre el crimen organizado han tenido como resultado asesinatos, como los recientemente ocurridos en Santa Rosa de Aguán.» - OFRANEH, 8 de septiembre de 2019
WITM - Refreshed INFOGRAPHIC 3 EN
How feminists resource themselves
Feminist and women’s rights organizations don’t just rely on institutional funding, we resource ourselves. Our organizing is powered by passion, political commitment, solidarity and collective care.
These resources are self- generated and autonomous, and often invisible in our budgets, but they are the backbone of our organizing.
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Para preguntas adicionales, por favor utiliza nuestro formulario de contacto. ¡Continuaremos actualizando este documento en base a las consultas que vayamos recibiendo de ustedes!
Anuncio: Foro AWID 2024
¡Es hora para el próximo Foro de AWID: en 2024!
Cuando miles de feministas se unen, creamos una fuerza arrolladora de solidaridad que tiene el poder de cambiar el mundo. El Foro de AWID será un momento para que descansemos y nos recuperemos juntas, nos conectemos más allá de las fronteras y descubramos nuevas y osadas direcciones estratégicas.
La fecha y el lugar se anunciarán el próximo año, tan pronto como podamos. Estamos emocionades y sabemos que ustedes también lo están. ¡Manténganse al tanto!
¡Asegúrate de seguirnos en las redes sociales y suscríbete a nuestra lista de correo para mantenerte al día!
Snippet Kohl - Plénière | Le plaisir au-delà des frontières
Avec Lindiwe Rasekoala, Lizzie Kiama, Jovana Drodevic et Malaka Grant.
Zarana Papic
Barbara Allimadi
Barbara Allimadi était une militante politique et des droits humains originaire d’Ouganda. En 2012, elle a coorganisé une manifestation contre l’agression policière télévisée d’Ingrid Turinawe, opposante politique dont le sein a été pressé par un officier de police. Durant la manifestation, Barbara et d’autres activistes se sont déshabillées et n’ont gardé que leur soutien-gorge devant le poste central de police de Kampala. Cet épisode fut par la suite désigné par la tristement célèbre « manifestation en soutien-gorge » en Ouganda.
« Nous avons opté pour une manifestation en soutien-gorge. Nous avons pensé qu’elle serait la plus appropriée par rapport aux faits. Ce n’est pas comme si nous étions en train de dire que nous ne nous respections pas. Nous étions dégoûtées par les actes commis. » - Barbara Allimadi, 2013 (Daily Monitor)
Diplômée en électronique et en ingénierie des communications de l’Université métropolitaine de Londres, Barbara était ingénieure réseau au Royaume-Uni et une fervente amatrice de musique reggae. Elle retourna en Ouganda en 2007, au moment du décès de sa mère.
En 2019, elle fut désignée Coordonnatrice pour les affaires internationales et la diaspora de l’Alliance for National Transformation (alliance pour la transformation nationale, ANT), un parti politique lancé la même année par un leader d’opposition.
« Nous voulons disposer d’une vie sûre et de biens, sans souffrance, sans blessure ni même de mort aux mains des forces de sécurité, qui sont censées nous protéger. Nous voulons surtout un environnement stable et propice dans lequel nous pourrons réaliser nos rêves et nos ambitions. » - Barbara Allimadi, vidéo de l’ANT
Barbara est décédée le 27 avril 2020.
Hommages :
« J’étais tellement fière de ma sœur pour plein de raisons, mais surtout pour sa recherche téméraire de la paix, de la démocratie, de la justice et de l’égalité en Ouganda. Au summum de son activisme, elle conduisait de nombreuses marches dans les rues de Kampala, jusqu’aux postes de police et au Parlement. » - Doris Allimadi, sœur de Barbara
« C’est avec une tristesse profonde que nous avons appris le décès précoce de Barbara Allimadi. Elle était une force vaillante, infatigable et courageuse pour le mouvement de libération en Ouganda. Nous adressons nos sincères condoléances à sa famille. Elle nous manquera terriblement. » - Akina Mama wa Afrika (tweet du 28 avril 2020)
« Le décès de Barbara est extrêmement triste pour nous, et pour toute sa famille. Elle s’est dévouée entièrement à lutter pour la justice, la liberté et les droits des autres, tout en servant la société civile jusqu’à sa récente adhésion au parti. » Maj Gen Mugisha Muntu, coordonnateur national de l’ANT
« Une soeur magnifique, charmante, drôle, charismatique et inspirante. Mes enfants ont perdu leur tante. L’Ouganda a perdu une combattante pour les libertés, brave et courageuse. Barbara disait autrefois “tant que vous pouvez respirer, continuez à agir pour atteindre vos rêves” » - Doris Allimadi, sœur de Barbara
Snippet - COP30 - Radical Democracy - EN
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
CFA 2023 - Online and Hybrid - EN
New
Online & Hybrid
As an online participant, you can facilitate activities, connect and converse with others, and experience first-hand the creativity, art and celebration of the AWID Forum. Participants connecting online will enjoy a rich and diverse program, from workshops and discussions to healing activities and musical performances. Some activities will focus on connection among online participants, and others will be truly hybrid, focusing on connection and interaction among online participants and those in Bangkok.
Trois bateaux, un cheval et un taxi : les féministes du Pacifique au Forum de l’AWID
Cette histoire raconte comment un groupe toujours plus diversifié de féministes du Pacifique s’est organisé au fil des ans pour participer aux Forums de l’AWID et comment ce qu’elles ont découvert, appris et vécu au cours de ce processus les a transformées à la fois personnellement, en tant qu’organisations et en tant que mouvement. Elle illustre à quel point les Forums sont des espaces offrant aux régions qui ont tendance à être mondialement marginalisées ou ignorées la possibilité d’établir une forte présence au sein du mouvement féministe, laquelle peut ensuite être reproduite dans d’autres espaces internationaux de défense des droits des femmes.
Dans leur propre voix : regardez l'interview de Virisila Buadromo et Michelle Reddy
Snippet Kohl - Intro EN
Feminists have long asserted that the personal is political. Crear, Resister, Transform Festival created spaces for feminists to discuss issues around body, gender and sexualities, and explored the interconnections of how these issues are both deeply embodied experiences, and simultaneously a terrain where rights are constantly disputed and at risk in society.
The power of feminist movements lie in how we organise and take coordinated action, not only amongst our own communities and movements, but with allied social justice causes and groups. This space provided opportunities for movements to share and strengthen organizing and tactical strategies with each other.
The COVID-19 global health pandemic has made the failures of neo-liberal capitalism even more apparent than ever before, exposed the cracks in our systems, and highlighted the need and opportunities to build new realities. A feminist economic and social recovery requires all of us to make it together. This journal edition in partnership with Kohl: a Journal for Body and Gender Research, will explore feminist solutions, proposals and realities for transforming our current world, our bodies and our sexualities.
Explore the articles online or
Download PDF
Paula Kantor
Snippet - COP30 - Actions - ES
Eventos y acciones en la COP30
8-16 de noviembre de 2025
CFA 2023 - Themes - EN
Themes
We welcome applications across the full range of thematic areas and intersections important to feminist and gender justice movements. In the application form, you will be able to mark more than one theme that fits your activity.
- Free Bodies, Free Spirits: all things bodily autonomy, gender and sexuality, reproductive health and rights, freedom from gender-based violence, freedom to live in safety, pleasure and joy in our diverse bodies, identities and communities, and much, much more.
- Resisting Anti-Rights: locally and globally, feminists are leading the way in resisting all forms of intersectional oppressions, including fascisms, fundamentalisms, and authoritarian regimes; we have a lot to share and strategize with each other about.
- Movements and Organizing: let us get to know each other’s movements. From navigation of power (internal and external) to protection strategies in the face of the repression of women and gender-diverse human rights defenders, from alliance-building to creative and successful forms of organizing, let’s learn and be inspired by each other.
- Economic Justice and Feminist Economies: this theme encompasses all feminist efforts to transform our economies, from challenging dominant extractive models and defending labor rights to embodying and living feminist economic practices and alternatives in everyday life.
- Funding/Resourcing Activism: securing much-needed funding is a shared challenge for movements across the world; let us together unpack the feminist funding ecosystem, from critical analysis to first-hand experiences and practical ways to fund feminist work.
- Climate, Environmental Justice, Land and Water: ecological and climate justice has deep roots in many of our movements and communities; from ancient traditions to futuristic visions, from ecology villages to campaigns to end extractivism and health justice, we invite a full scope of activities on all aspects of climate and environmental justice.
- Militarization, War and Conflict: we aim to spotlight feminist organizing, analysis and experiences often on the frontline of crisis response and helping to sustain life, community and justice in the harshest times of war and protracted conflict.
- Decolonization: decolonization is central to each and every one of our themes, yet it also stands on its own, as a key feminist agenda of resistance and world-building in many colonial and post-colonial realities.
- Digital Realities and Feminist Tech: we welcome an opportunity to celebrate the incredible feminist initiatives that transform digital worlds, challenge big tech power structures, and democratize technology as truly by and for the people.
- Healing Justice: there is an incredible diversity of approaches to collective care and healing justice. Worldwide, healers and movements are reclaiming healing justice as a political principle, a set of practices, a learning journey, a way of life, and much more.
- Add your theme here!
A Strategy, a Market and New Voices: Indigenous Women and the AWID Forums
The Forum was a key space for the Indigenous Women’s Movement (IWM) in its relationship to feminism. At AWID Forums, they developed engagement strategies that would then apply at other spaces like the United Nations. In that process, both indigenous women and feminists movements were transformed: new voices and issues emerged and feminists started to change their discourses and practices around land rights and spirituality, they understood collective rights better, and included the IWM in their events and agendas. Mónica Alemán and María Manuela Sequeira, from the IWM, shared this story of change.
In their own voice: watch the interview with María Manuela Sequeira & Mónica Alemán
Sexting Like a Feminist: Humor in the Digital Feminist Revolution Snippet Small
Sexting Like a Feminist: Humor in the Digital Feminist Revolution
by Chinelo Onwualu
On September 2nd, 2021, the amazing feminist and social justice activists of AWID’s Crear | Résister | Transform festival came together not only to share resistance strategies, co-create, and transform the world, but also to talk dirty on Twitter.
Ronnie Gilbert
Snippet - COP30 - Our Tools title - EN
Herramientas de organización para la COP30
Clone of CFA 2023 - Hybrid like never before: in person - EN
In-person
Participants will come together in Bangkok, Thailand. We can’t wait!