Philippe Leroyer | Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Special Focus

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

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.

  • 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.

  • 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;

  • 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:

  • Mobilizing urgent responses of international solidarity for WHRDs at risk through our international and regional networks, and our active membership.

Related Content

1. Gather your resources

This section highlights key resources recommended by AWID so you can conduct your own WITM research.

In this section

People needed

  • 1 or more person(s) to lead overall implementation of research methodology and ensure all key pieces are on track (Sections 2-11)
  • 1 or more person(s) to conceptualize the key research objectives and guiding questions
  • 1 or more person(s) to refine and conduct the research methodology, including collecting data
  • 1 or more person(s) to conduct relevant qualitative and quantitative analysis of collected data
  • 1 or more person(s) to document and package research findings for desired audience(s)
  • 1 or more person(s) to serve as an editor to your final products
  • 1 or more person(s) to conduct outreach to spread the word about your survey and advocacy using your research results

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Potential expenses

  1. Staff and/or consultant salaries
  2. Data analysis software if conducting analysis of large dataset in-house. Options:
    - SPSS
    - Stata
    - R (this is free)
  3. Cost of producing publications and research products
  4. If desired, incentive prize that survey participants can win if they complete the survey
  5. If desired, incentives to offer your advisors

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Estimated time

  • For research process: 6 to 18 months, depending on size of dataset(s) and staff capacity
  • For advocacy: 1-2 years, as determined by your organizational goals

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Resources needed

  • List of advisor organizations, donors and activists
  • List of online spaces and events/networks to distribute your survey and present your survey results
  • List of donors, activists, and women’s rights organizations to interview
  • Prepared interview questions
  • List of publication sources to use for desk research

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Resources available

Online tools

Once you gather these resources, you can estimate the costs for your research using our “Ready to Go? Worksheet”

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Previous step

Before you begin

Next step

2. Frame your research


Previous step

Before you begin

Next step

2. Frame your research


The Ready to Go? Worksheet helps you estimate resources, staff and budget needed for your research

Download the toolkit in PDF

Razan Al-Najar

Razan era una médica voluntaria de 21 años en Palestina.

Le dispararon cuando corría hacia un muro fronterizo fortificado, en un intento por llegar hasta una persona herida en el este de la ciudad de Khan Younis, en el sur de Gaza.

En su última publicación en Facebook, Razan dijo: «Estoy volviendo y no retirándome», y añadió: «Denme con sus balas, no tengo miedo».

 


 

Razan Al-Najjar, Palestine

Our group did not receive external funding between 2021 and 2023, should we still fill out the survey?

Yes, we still want to hear from you regardless of whether you received funding in all three, two or only one of the years between 2021 and 2023.

Snippet FEA This is the story of the Nadia Echazú (EN)

A workplace does not have to operate on competition and profit. It does not have to exploit people for the benefit of the owner and a small elite either.

Instead, communities on the margins of formal economies are building cooperative models based on autonomy, cooperation, shared responsibility, self-management and solidarity.

Worker-controlled cooperatives and workplaces have always offered alternative ways of generating employment opportunities, income, social security and savings - while distributing revenues in more communal, sustainable and safer ways.

But it is more than an employment opportunity: it is the making of dreams into a reality, and the building of feminist economies based on solidarity and care for each other. It is about creating a world where our lives, our labor and our communities matter.

This is the story of the Nadia Echazú Textile Cooperative, the first social enterprise managed by and for travesti and trans people in Argentina.

5. Conduct interviews

Interviews produce in-depth information that you cannot easily obtain from surveys. While surveys focuses mainly on quantifiable data and closed questions, interviews allow for expert opinions from activists and donors, and open-ended questions which can provide context to survey data results.

In this section

General tips

1. Before conducting your interviews

Send the interviewees a concept note with your objectives for the interview and for your overall research, as well as a list of questions.

This allows them to prepare answers for more complicated questions and look up information that they may not have immediately on hand.

2. During the interviews

  • You can conduct interviews while your survey is running, in order to save time.
  • Try to keep your interviews as consistent as possible in order to facilitate systematic analysis of results. This means asking the same questions. Coding identical responses to each question will allow you to uncover hidden trends.
  • The interviews can also be used to flesh out some of the survey findings

Do not base your questions on assumptions about your interviewees’ knowledge.
Instead, first clarify what they know – this will reveal information as well.

  • DON’T: “Given the current funding trends in Switzerland, do you know of any opportunities for collaboration? This question assumes that the interviewee knows current funding trends and that their understanding of funding trends matches yours.
  • DO: First ask “What is your understanding of current funding trends in Switzerland?”, followed by “Do you know of any opportunities for collaboration?” This will reveal what their understanding is, giving you even more information than the first question.

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Specialized interviews

1. Donor interviews

Interviews with donors will allow you to build deeper relationships with them, which will be useful when you conduct post-research advocacy. They will also provide you with deeper insight into funders’ decision-making processes.

Suggested topics of focus for donor interviews:

  • What are their funding priorities? Why and how did they select those priorities? For example, why do they choose project-funding over core support or vice versa?
  • What are annual amounts allocated to the advancement of women’s human rights? This will strengthen overall reliability of data collected.
  • Have they noticed any funding trends, and what do they believe are the origins and politics behind these trends?
  • What is their theory of social change and how does that impact their relationships with women’s rights organizations?
View samples of donor interviews

2. Women’s rights organizations and activists interviews

Interviews with women’s rights organizations and activists will provide you with insight into their on-the-ground realities. Again, these interviews will allow you to build deeper relationships that can be incorporated into your advocacy, particularly to encourage collaboration between donors and activists.

Suggested topics of focus for women’s rights organizations and activist interviews:

  • Long-term funding priority trends noted by women’s organizations and their impact.
  • Successful examples of feminist and collaborative resource mobilization strategies that build strong and complementary movements.
  • “Making the case” for why it is important to support women’s organizations and organizing.
  • How different actors understand the social change process and their role in advancing/achieving gender equality and women’s rights.
View samples of women’s organizations and activists interviews

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Preliminary findings

Through the course of your WITM research, we recommend analyzing your preliminary findings. Presenting your preliminary findings opens up opportunities to conduct more interviews and get feedback on your research process and initial results. This feedback can be incorporated into your final research.

AWID conducts “WITM convenings” to share preliminary results of survey data and interviews. These gatherings allow participants (activists, women’s rights organizations, and donors) to debate and discuss the results, clarifying the context, creating more ownership amongst members of the movement, and providing more input for final research.

For example, the Resource Mobilization Hub for Indigenous Women’s Rights at the World Summit on Indigenous Philanthropy was used as a space to debut preliminary results.

See the presentation given at the RMH

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Previous step

4. Collect and analyze your data

Next step

6. Conduct desk research


Estimated time:

• 1.5 - 3 months

People needed:

• 1 or more research person(s)

Resources needed:

• List of donors and women’s rights organizations and activists to interview
• Prepared interview questions
• Concept Note (You can use the research framing you created in the “Frame your research” section)

Resources available:

AWID Sample Interview Questions: Donors
AWID Sample Interview Questions: Activists & Women’s Rights Organizations


Previous step

4. Collect and analyze your data

Next step

6. Conduct desk research


Ready to Go? Worksheet

Download the toolkit in PDF

Sue Hoya Sellars

Née en 1936 dans le Maryland aux États-Unis, Sue était artiste, activiste et enseignante.

Son art était destiné aux femmes et parlait des femmes. En tant que féministe lesbienne, pendant un temps séparatiste, elle s'est engagée à créer des espaces réservés aux femmes. En 1976, elle a acheté un terrain qui est toujours géré par des femmes qui y séjournent pour créer de l'art. Sue a pris une position farouche sur la question de la protection des femmes et des filles.

Avec son approche révolutionnaire, futuriste et anthropologique, elle remplissait chaque pièce dans laquelle elle entrait avec une intelligence et une excentricité authentiques, ainsi qu’un humour et un esprit impitoyable. Ses idées sur la conscience et la créativité continuent à inspirer beaucoup de gens.


 

Sue Hoya Sellars, USA

Nos solicitan el nombre de la agrupación, organización o movimiento que está respondiendo la encuesta, así como nuestra información de contacto, ¿por qué?

Solicitamos estos datos para facilitar el análisis de las respuestas, para evitar duplicaciones y para contactar a su organización en caso de que no hayan podido completar el cuestionario o de que tengan dudas u otras preguntas. Puedes consultar más detalles acerca de cómo utilizamos la información personal que recolectamos a través de nuestro trabajo aquí.

Snippet FEA 1 of 3 trans and travesti people (ES)

This is an illustration that depicts a burgundy building next to a duck blue building

1 de cada 3 personas trans y travesti en Argentina vive en un hogar de bajos ingresos.

Gracias por participar en la creación de nuestros Futuros Feministas

¡Gracias por haber sido parte del Foro AWID 2016!

AWID agradece enormemente a todxs ustedes que han compartido con nosotrxs estos últimos cuatro días de aprendizaje, celebraciones, ideaciones, sueños y la construcción conjunta de nuestros futuros feministas en el Foro AWID 2016.

Nos sentimos muy inspiradxs, maravilladxs y llenxs de energía con todo el trabajo colectivo que hemos hecho para crear nuestros diversos futuros feministas.

Para más imagen, blogues y recursos:

Visite el sitio del Foro


Conéctate con #AWIDForum

Lara Kruger

Lara was a well-known and loved radio DJ on Motsweding FM in South Africa.

Lara was one of the first openly-transgender radio hosts on a mainstream station. She worked hard to shine a light on LGBTI issues.

Lara’s activism started at a young age when she would vocally defend her right to dress and behave as she felt comfortable to members of her community who didn’t yet understand what it meant to be transgender.


 

Lara Kruger, South Africa
Body

Pendant combien de temps l’enquête reste-t-elle ouverte?

Elle est ouverte jusqu’à la fin août 2024. Merci d’y répondre avant cette date butoir, afin que vos réponses soient incluses dans l’analyse.

Snippet FEA Trans and Travesti people (FR)

Cette image représente une personne sans visage aux cheveux courts foncés, à la peau foncée, portant une chemise bleu canard et un pull jaune, travaillant derrière une machine à coudre bordeaux sur un morceau de tissu bleu canard.

LE QUOTA D'EMPLOI TRANS
n'est pas respecté par les entreprises

Les savoirs communautaires pour bâtir des futurs justes

Le contexte

Aujourd'hui, de nombreux systèmes de savoirs communautaires sont en danger.

Les changements qui surviennent à une vitesse effrénée sur le plan économique, politique et culturel détruisent les environnements, les pratiques et les moyens de subsistance. Diverses formes de connaissances sombrent dans l’oubli, sont marchandées et colonisées dans le cadre de la mondialisation massive, de la promesse de gains à court terme, ou encore contre des solutions de fortune.

Définition

Le Buen Vivir (le bien-vivre), un concept adapté à partir des connaissances des peuples autochtones andins, est décrit comme la réalisation collective d'une vie d'accomplissement fondée sur des relations harmonieuses et équilibrées entre les êtres humains et tous les êtres vivants, dans la réciprocité et la complémentarité. Cela implique de reconnaître que les êtres humains sont une partie intégrante de la nature, que nous dépendons de la nature et que nous sommes interdépendant-e-s entre nous.

La vision inhérente à la notion de Buen Vivir intègre la production et la reproduction comme processus indissociables de l'économie, de la production de richesse et des conditions de vie.

Perspective féministe

D’une perspective féministe, le Buen Vivir valorise les relations et les ressources mobilisées dans les cycles de production et de reproduction, favorisant l’équilibre (non seulement celui des marchés) afin de garantir la continuité et les changements, tant qu'ils sont compatibles avec la justice économique et la pérennité de la vie.

Certaines conceptions binaires liées au genre et à la complémentarité entre les hommes et les femmes ont été critiquées par les féministes puisqu’elles laissent peu de place à une discussion plus approfondie sur le patriarcat hétérocentrique et les relations de genre ‘non conformes’.

Cela dit, l'une des principales contributions de l’application du principe Buen Vivir aux cadres politiques, économiques et sociaux, consiste à ce que l'égalité ne représente plus le paradigme des droits individuels, ayant plutôt pour objet la transformation de l’ensemble de la société.



Pour en savoir plus sur cette proposition :

  • Buen Vivir: An introduction from a women’s rights perspective in Bolivia (Une perspective des droits des femmes sur le Buen Vivir en Bolivie : Une introduction, disponible en anglais). Dans son article, Martha Lanza conteste l'idée que le Buen Vivir est neutre en matière de genre et réclame le démantèlement des structures de pouvoir patriarcales qui persistent. Dans la même publication, Magdalena León analyse d’une perspective de genre la façon dont la cosmovision du Buen Vivir cherche à vaincre les idéaux d'expansion et de croissance permanentes, en plus de mettre en lumière les préjugés sexistes qui doivent être pris en compte.
  • Buen Vivir: Today’s Tomorrows (Les lendemains d’aujourd’hui) par Eduardo Gudynas (en anglais).
  • Indigenous Women's Visions of an Inclusive Feminism (Visions de femmes autochtones pour un féminisme inclusif), par Myrna Cunningham (en anglais). Un document qui met en évidence les contributions essentielles des femmes autochtones à la construction d'un mouvement féministe plus diversifié, inclusif et fort.

María Cecilia Alfaro Quesada

María Cecilia dedicó la mayor parte de su vida a la incorporación de una perspectiva feminista y de género en el trabajo institucional y organizacional y en el de capacitación. 

De niña, demostraba fuerte interés en el arte, la comunicación, la naturaleza, la literatura y el logro de la justicia, especialmente para las mujeres y los grupos marginados. 

Estaba comprometida con los derechos sexuales y reproductivos y fue parte de la Junta Nacional para la Educación Integral en Sexualidad. Sus seres queridxs la recuerdan como «una luchadora apasionada e incansable» con un profundo compromiso con los derechos de las mujeres y lxs niñxs.


 

María Cecilia Alfaro Quesada, Guatemala