Practicing Shared Leadership: The AWID experience

At AWID, we spend a lot of time thinking about power, and how it functions not only in the world at large but also internally within our own organization. It is this commitment to building collective power that inspired us to begin experimenting with a practice of sharing leadership.

Reclaiming Indigenous land, bodies and joy

From self-governance to soccer tournaments, Zapatista women show how another world is possible at the first international gathering of women in struggle.

Weakening human rights mechanisms and challenging activism

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

In rural Paraguay, women are on the frontlines of a ‘race against time’ to save native seeds

Amid the spread of industrial farming, transgenic crops and seed patents, rural women are conserving native varieties and teaching others about agro-ecology.

Justice not “special attention”: Feminist Visions for the Binding Treaty

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.

How Mayan women in Guatemala are fighting to protect their designs – and their identity

Mayan weavers are organising to defend their art, pushing for new legislation to recognise and protect their ‘collective intellectual property’

Argentine Green Tide on the Rise, Challenging ‘Fear of god’

After the June 14th vote that approved the bill legalizing the Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancies, various groups and institutions ramped up their opposition. Out of arguments, they began resorting to violence.

Why we need a feminist funding ecosystem

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?”

“First, they took Dilma”: The Feminist Struggle in Brazil has endured hardships, but we are not alone

A young feminist activist from Brazil describes the cycle of collective pain, mourning, and hope that she and her comrades experienced throughout recent political events

7 things to look out for this Human Rights Council Session

This June-July session of the Human Rights Council (HRC38), as every year, focuses on issues of gender and sexuality.