Nasreen Pervin Huq
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
Snippet FEA What are the objectives (ES)
¿Cuáles son los Objetivos de Nous Sommes la Solution?
Maria da Lurdes Fernandes Silva
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
2. During the interviews- Specialized interviews
1. Donor interviews
2. Women’s rights organizations and activists interviews- Preliminary findings
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.
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
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.
Previous step
4. Collect and analyze your data
Next step
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
Ready to Go? Worksheet
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.
Snippet FEA NSS uplifts and grows (FR)
Nous Sommes la Solution élève et développe le leadership des femmes rurales travaillant à des solutions africaines pour la souveraineté alimentaire.
Noxolo Nogwaza
Marta Vásquez
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:
¿Cuántas preguntas contiene la encuesta?
La encuesta contiene 47 preguntas en total, de las cuales 27 son de respuesta obligatoria* y las 20 restantes son opcionales. La mayoría de las preguntas de la encuesta son de opción múltiple. Invitamos a responder la totalidad de las preguntas.
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.
Rohini Ghadiok
Elisa Badayos
Elisa était la coordinatrice de l'organisation de défense des droits humains Karapatan, dans la province de Negros Oriental aux Philippines.
Elle organisait également les communautés urbaines pauvres dans la province de Cebu et travaillait avec Desaparecidos, une organisation de familles de disparu-e-s.
Le 28 novembre 2017, lors d'une mission d'enquête sur des violations des droits fonciers dans la région, Elisa et deux de ses collègues ont été abattu-e-s par deux hommes non identifiés à Barangay San Ramon, ville de Bayawan, dans la province de Negros Oriental.
Elle laisse quatre enfants derrière elle.
Body
Snippet FEA trans and travesti people in Argentina (ES)
Solo el 18% de las personas trans y travestis en Argentina acceden a un trabajo formal
Yelena Bonner
Guadalupe Campanur Tapia
Guadalupe was an environmental activist involved in the fight against crime in Cherán, Mexico.
Guadalupe helped to overthrow the local government in April 2011 and participated in local security patrols including those in municipal forests. She was among the Indigenous leaders of Cherán, who called on people to defend their forests against illegal and merciless logging. Her work for seniors, children, and workers made her an icon in her community.
She was killed in Chilchota, Mexico about 30 kilometers north of her hometown of Cherá.
Feminist propositions: Glossary of terms
Capitalism:
An economic system in which production and consumption patterns are based on profit using privately owned capital goods and wage labour. The system builds on individual wealth and capital accumulation at the lowest cost to the investor, with little regard for the societal costs and exploitation of the workforce - both paid and unpaid.
Commodification of land:
The conversion of land and activities related to it (like agriculture) into commodities that can be bought or sold for profit.
International Financial Institutions (IFIs):
Institutions (like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, or regional development banks) that provide loans to countries lacking sufficient money to cover funding shortfalls or to finance development projects. Historically, the lending policies of these institutions have been determined by economically powerful Western countries and private enterprises. Loans to low-income countries in particular typically include conditionalities that prompt economic reforms in these countries to support neo-liberalism.
Neoliberalism:
A set of economic and political theories in which market forces, rather than governments, determine key aspects of the economy with governments acting to support globalized markets and the interests of capital. Neo-liberal economic policies typically include promotion of free trade, privatisation, reduced government spending on social programs, subsidies and tax exemptions for business, deregulation of financial sector and foreign investments, low taxes on the wealthy and corporations, flexible labour and weak environmental protection.
Patriarchy:
Refers to systemic and institutionalized male domination embedded in and perpetuated by cultural, political, economic and social structures and ideologies. Hetero-patriarchy in addition, is a patriarchal system that is also based on the belief that heterosexuality is the only normal and acceptable sexual orientation.