FRIDAY FILE - The Pacific region is one of the most vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change, with effects already being felt in sectors such as agriculture, water resources, forestry and tourism. But what mechanisms are in place to ensure women’s involvement in climate change processes?

By Rochelle Jones

AWID interviewed Dr. Netatua Pelesikoti and Peniamina Leavai* from the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) about new moves towards gender mainstreaming climate change initiatives.

FRIDAY FILE: Idle No More (INM) is a Canadian resistance and protest indigenous people’s movement that kicked off last year. AWID spoke with Dr. Lynn Gehl* (Gii-Zhigaate Mnidookwe), an indigenous human rights advocate, about the movement.

By Gabriela De Cicco

FRIDAY FILE - AWID interviewed Rajaa Altalli, co-founder and Public Relations Director from the Center for Civil Society and Democracy in Syria (CCSDS) about the impacts of Syria’s humanitarian crisis on women, their priority shift from revolution to survival, and how, amongst all the bloodshed, some Syrian women are organizing for their role in a transitional process.

By Rochelle Jones

A convoluted war

FRIDAY FILE – AWID spoke to Charlotte Bunch, Founding Director and Senior Scholar of the Center for Women's Global Leadership, Rutgers University, about the key role the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna and the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (VDPA) played in advancing a human rights revolution, and why Vienna + 20 needs to highlight both the progress and the continuing obstacles to realization of these rights.

By Susan Tolmay

FRIDAY FILE – AWID offers a collection of initial reactions from women's and human rights advocates and organizations to the recommendations made on how a development agenda post-2015 could look. The first formal proposal was presented in a report prepared by the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons (HLP) released to the public on May 30, 2013.

FRIDAY FILE – Talks at the 46thUN Commission on Population and Development (CPD), under the theme New trends in migration: demographic aspects, saw rights-based groups confronting the very narrow views of migration held by conservative groups and affirming the role that sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHRs) play in the lives of migrants, particularly women and girls.

By Saira Zuberi

FRIDAY FILE – Last July, a high court sentenced the Namibian state for the forced sterilization of three HIV-positive women. In Uzbekistan, authorities continue to deny reported cases. AWID looks into forced sterilizations in both countries and what it means for women’s reproductive rights.

By Ani Colekessian*

FRIDAY FILE - AWID interviewed pro-democracy activist and lecturer Dr Ala’a Shehabi* about the current violence and persecution against Bahraini citizens and how women are contributing to the fight for democracy and rights.

By Rochelle Jones

Contemporary Bahrain’s simmering unrest

FRIDAY FILE - Sudanese people inspired by the Arab spring, and led by women and youth, took the streets of Sudan demanding regime change in 2011. Authorities violently cracked down on these demonstrations, detaining more than 150 women, who were sexually abused or tortured, injured and beaten in the protests.

Since June 2012, new protests against the Sudanese regime have intensified violence against women human rights defenders (WHRD).[1]

By Katherine Ronderos

FRIDAY FILE - On April 2, 2013, a decades long campaign culminated in the signing of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) at the UN General Assembly. The ATT prohibits arms sales when there is a risk that weapons could be used to violate international humanitarian or human rights law.

By Amanda Shaw