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FRIDAY FILE: A discussion about the implications of the proposed UN Fifth World Conference on Women in 2015 is urgently needed among feminists and women’s rights activists from all regions of the world.

There are diverse opinions about the organization, hosting and purpose of the proposed conference, which have not been broadly debated.

By Susan Tolmay[i]

The proposed 5th World Conference on Women

On April 27, during its 45th Session, the United Nations Commission on Population and Development (CPD) adopted a landmark Resolution on the sexual and reproductive health and rights of adolescents and youth.

FRIDAY FILE: Feminists have started to consider self-care and security as a political tool to ensure the survival of our movement as well as our personal wellness. But, the patriarchal legacy mandating women as “care-givers of the world”, creates contradictions in balancing the demand of caring for others with needing to care for ourselves.

By Katherine Ronderos

Rape and gender violence in conflict is a problem of huge proportions across the globe.

The International Campaign to Stop Rape & Gender Violence in Conflict has been launched to end this wanton scourge. AWID spoke to Yee Htun, Coordinator of the International Campaign to Stop Rape & Gender Violence in Conflict at the Nobel Women’s Initiative about the objectives and hopes for the campaign.

FRIDAY FILE: The onslaught of transgenic food production, the advance of agro-business driven single-crop farming and the exploitative economic development model, are putting food sovereignty at risk. Those supporting and reinforcing these practices, including transnational corporations, are more focused on profit than caring for food and natural resources.

FRIDAY FILE: Domestic workers contribute greatly to the global economy. They bolster local and foreign economies by taking on care-giving roles, and migrant workers send home remittances that form a substantial part of their home countries’ gross domestic product. Yet for a long time domestic labour has been unregulated and domestic workers have experienced violations of their economic rights and faced barriers in accessing justice.

FRIDAY FILE: The role of women and girls as key to changing the course of development has received increasing attention in recent years, further bolstered by calls for making gender equality a cornerstone of development, but has the rhetoric of commitment translated into actual financial support?

FRIDAY FILE: Twenty years after the first United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) that took place in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 it is clear that governments have failed to implement development models that are socially just and environmentally sustainable. It is in the context of revision of the of sustainable development framework that Rio+20 will take place.

Friday File: This week the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition (WHRD IC) launched its Global Report on the Situation of Women Human Rights Defenders to advance the recognition of WHRDs, the violence and human rights violations they face, and the contexts that enable these violations.

By Katherine Ronderos

FRIDAY FILE: Militarism, conflict and violence are on the rise and have a range of gender-specific impacts. Increased spending on defense, arms and security often means that spending on social services is being cut. In the context of militarism and conflict violence against women also increases and attacks on women’s human rights defenders are growing and are increasingly normalized.