The Women’s Rights in Transitions to Democracy: Achieving Rights Resisting Backlash (Pre-Meeting and Strategy Sessions Report) is based on the pre AWID 2012 Forum consultation devoted to strategizing around women’s rights and transitions to democracy, attended by almost 100 women’s rights leaders from over 18 countries in the MENA region, as well as activists from Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia.

The Transitional Justice category examines different case studies showcasing the impact of addressing injustice on the degree to which women’s rights were achieved in various democratization processes. Women have often been referred to as “weapons of war” in all kinds of conflicts across and within borders, in different cultures, times and regions. Mechanisms used to bring those crimes committed before, during, and after conflicts and wars to justice are critical for laying the foundation for the new democracies.

The Transitions to Democracy category mirrors the title of the mapping by including pieces that provide a more general historic geopolitical overview of specific countries or situations in transition from a broad cross-cutting perspective, thus setting a contextual tone for more specific categories of resources.

This report captures the highlights and outcomes of the Feminist Resource Mobilization Strategy Meeting for Women’s Rights Organizations & Movements in the MENA Region, a space for over 50 participant organizations to receive important information on funding for women’s rights.

Ikhtyar is a collective of young Egyptians who want to awaken the queer feminist consciousness. That’s what brought us together from diverse points of departure. We share a dream and want to see it come to life.

The Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition (WHRD-IC) is calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Atena Daemi from Tehran’s Evin prison. She must also be given immediate access to specialised medical care outside prison.

The WHRD IC is deeply concerned about the recent detention of eight Turkish human rights defenders and two IT trainers and calls for their immediate and unconditional release. Among those who were detained from a human rights workshop are prominent members of the women’s rights movement, which is a clear attempt to destabilize and demoralize women who engage in legitimate and important activism to defend and promote human rights.

The WHRD-IC calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Ebtisam Al-Saegh, and the end to the harassment, intimidation, violence and threats towards her and her family. We ask the Bahraini authorities to end their campaign against all human rights defenders.