Isabel and Reyna Ayala Nava
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.
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Y aura-t-il un espace dédié aux jeunes féministes ? Un espace consacré à la justice pour les personnes en situation de handicap ? Un pôle numérique/technologique ? Des réunions- café pour les bailleurs de fonds ? Des espaces bien-être et thérapeutiques ?
Nous partagerons dès que possible les informations concernant le programme, les espaces et la manière dont vous pourrez vous impliquer dans leur élaboration. Vous pourrez également participer au développement de ces espaces dans le temps précédant le Forum et pendant le Forum. Restez à l'écoute !
Building Feminist Economies
Building Feminist Economies is about creating a world with clean air to breath and water to drink, with meaningful labour and care for ourselves and our communities, where we can all enjoy our economic, sexual and political autonomy.
In the world we live in today, the economy continues to rely on women’s unpaid and undervalued care work for the profit of others. The pursuit of “growth” only expands extractivism - a model of development based on massive extraction and exploitation of natural resources that keeps destroying people and planet while concentrating wealth in the hands of global elites. Meanwhile, access to healthcare, education, a decent wage and social security is becoming a privilege to few. This economic model sits upon white supremacy, colonialism and patriarchy.
Adopting solely a “women’s economic empowerment approach” is merely to integrate women deeper into this system. It may be a temporary means of survival. We need to plant the seeds to make another world possible while we tear down the walls of the existing one.
We believe in the ability of feminist movements to work for change with broad alliances across social movements. By amplifying feminist proposals and visions, we aim to build new paradigms of just economies.
Our approach must be interconnected and intersectional, because sexual and bodily autonomy will not be possible until each and every one of us enjoys economic rights and independence. We aim to work with those who resist and counter the global rise of the conservative right and religious fundamentalisms as no just economy is possible until we shake the foundations of the current system.
Our Actions
Our work challenges the system from within and exposes its fundamental injustices:
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Advance feminist agendas: We counter corporate power and impunity for human rights abuses by working with allies to ensure that we put forward feminist, women’s rights and gender justice perspectives in policy spaces. For example, learn more about our work on the future international legally binding instrument on “transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights” at the United Nations Human Rights Council.
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Mobilize solidarity actions: We work to strengthen the links between feminist and tax justice movements, including reclaiming the public resources lost through illicit financial flows (IFFs) to ensure social and gender justice.
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Build knowledge: We provide women human rights defenders (WHRDs) with strategic information vital to challenge corporate power and extractivism. We will contribute to build the knowledge about local and global financing and investment mechanisms fuelling extractivism.
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Create and amplify alternatives: We engage and mobilize our members and movements in visioning feminist economies and sharing feminist knowledges, practices and agendas for economic justice.
“The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing”.
Arundhati Roy, War Talk
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¡Bienvenidx al 15° Foro Internacional de AWID!
El Foro Internacional de AWID es un evento de la comunidad global y, a la vez, un espacio para una transformación personal radical . Es un encuentro único: el Foro reúne los movimientos feministas, por los derechos de las mujeres, por la justicia de género, LBTQI+ y aliados, en toda nuestra diversidad y humanidad, para conectarnos, sanar y florecer. El Foro es un lugar donde lxs feministas del Sur Global y de las comunidades históricamente marginadas ocupan el centro de la escena, elaborando estrategias entre sí y con los movimientos aliados, donantes y creadores de políticas para alterar las relaciones de poder, establecer alianzas e inaugurar un mundo diferente y mejor.
Cuando la gente se reúne a escala global, como personas individuales y como movimientos, se genera una fuerza arrolladora. Únete a nosotrxs en Bangkok, Tailandia, en 2024. Ven a bailar, cantar y rebelarte con nosotrxs.
Cuándo: del 2 al 5 de diciembre de 2024
Dónde: Bangkok, Tailandia, y en línea
Quiénes: Aproximadamente unxs 2.500 feministas de todo el mundo participarán en persona, y otrxs 3.000 participarán de manera virtual
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El tema del Foro –– Rebelándonos Juntes –– es una invitación a vincularnos con todo nuestro ser, a conectarnos entre nosotrxs en forma focalizada, afectuosa y valiente, para que podamos sentir el latido de los movimientos globales y rebelarnos juntxs para enfrentar los desafíos de esta época.
Los movimientos feministas, por los derechos de las mujeres, por la justicia de género, LBTQI+ y aliados de todo el mundo están en una instancia crítica, ya que deben enfrentar una poderosa reacción contra los derechos y las libertades previamente ganados. Durante los últimos años, hemos asistido al rápido auge de los autoritarismos, a la violenta represión de la sociedad civil y la criminalización de las mujeres y las personas de género no normativo defensoras de los derechos humanos, a la escalada bélica y de los conflictos armados en muchas partes de nuestro mundo, a la perpetuación continua de las injusticias económicas y a las crisis sanitarias, ecológicas y climáticas entrecruzadas.
Nuestros movimientos están sacudidos y, a la vez, buscan construir y mantener la fortaleza necesaria para el trabajo que hay por delante. No podemos hacer este trabajo solxs, en nuestros núcleos aislados. La conexión y la sanación son esenciales para transformar los persistentes desequilibrios de poder y las líneas divisorias dentro de nuestros propios movimientos. Debemos trabajar y elaborar estrategias de manera interconectada, para que podamos florecer juntxs. El Foro de AWID promueve ese ingrediente vital de interconexión en el poder de resistencia, crecimiento e influencia transformadora de las organizaciones feministas de todo el planeta.
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Nous acceptons les candidatures dans toute la gamme des domaines thématiques et des intersections importantes pour les mouvements féministes et de justice de genre.
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Publications
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