The US and recent undermining tactics at the Human Rights Council

The Human Rights Council (HRC) is the UN’s main “political” human rights body, meaning it’s the main place where governments discuss and negotiate human rights issues, challenge one another about their national contexts and hold one another accountable for violations. The HRC meets a few times a year, and as we reflect on its recently-concluded September session, it is important to revisit some of the details of the June convening to better understand how some states seek to avoid scrutiny and undermine the entire s

A comprehensive resolution on preventable maternal mortality and morbidity and human rights in humanitarian settings was adopted by consensus on Thursday September 27, 2018.

In support of the September 28 “Global Day of Action for Access to Safe and Legal Abortion”, 223 civil society organizations from around the world have endorsed this joint statement on abortion rights.

AWID and partners call out the dismantling of human rights mechanisms and express solidarity with the Coalition of African Lesbians.

Feminists support the Special Rapporteur's call for justice on the attacks on and criminalization of indigenous peoples defending their rights.

In August 2015, Luisa Lozano, a Kichwa woman from the Saraguro people joined an indigenous mobilisation to defend their right to land from corporation takeovers and demand increased protection of indigenous rights. It is during these protests, that military and police “beat a pregnant women with truncheons, dragging her about 30 meters and spraying her with pepper gas.” Soon thereafter, Luisa Lozano was arrested for defending the pregnant woman and was sentenced to 4 years in prison alongside other women.

Frontline women activists representing over 20 countries will remind member states of their legal obligation to protect human rights on 20th anniversary of human rights declaration.

Feminists welcome the major gains on women’s and girls’ rights and sexual and reproductive health and rights at the Human Rights Council.

If you’ve spent any time in a feminist space in the last decade or so, you’ve heard the question, “Where is the money for women’s rights?”

The Association for Women’s Rights in Development is pleased to make this statement on behalf of the Observatory on the Universality of Rights.