Confronting Extractivism & Corporate Power

Women human rights defenders (WHRDs) worldwide defend their lands, livelihoods and communities from extractive industries and corporate power. They stand against powerful economic and political interests driving land theft, displacement of communities, loss of livelihoods, and environmental degradation.


Why resist extractive industries?

Extractivism is an economic and political model of development that commodifies nature and prioritizes profit over human rights and the environment. Rooted in colonial history, it reinforces social and economic inequalities locally and globally. Often, Black, rural and Indigenous women are the most affected by extractivism, and are largely excluded from decision-making. Defying these patriarchal and neo-colonial forces, women rise in defense of rights, lands, people and nature.

Critical risks and gender-specific violence

WHRDs confronting extractive industries experience a range of risks, threats and violations, including criminalization, stigmatization, violence and intimidation.  Their stories reveal a strong aspect of gendered and sexualized violence. Perpetrators include state and local authorities, corporations, police, military, paramilitary and private security forces, and at times their own communities.

Acting together

AWID and the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition (WHRD-IC) are pleased to announce “Women Human Rights Defenders Confronting Extractivism and Corporate Power”; a cross-regional research project documenting the lived experiences of WHRDs from Asia, Africa and Latin America.

We encourage activists, members of social movements, organized civil society, donors and policy makers to read and use these products for advocacy, education and inspiration.

Share your experience and questions!

Tell us how you are using the resources on WHRDs Confronting extractivism and corporate power.

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Thank you!

AWID acknowledges with gratitude the invaluable input of every Woman Human Rights Defender who participated in this project. This project was made possible thanks to your willingness to generously and openly share your experiences and learnings. Your courage, creativity and resilience is an inspiration for us all. Thank you!

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Cartas de Amor a los Movimientos Feministas

Como podrás o no saber, AWID está celebrando su 40º aniversario en 2022 y, para festejarlo, se eligieron los lemas «Reunir, sembrar e irrumpir». En honor a esta ocasión, hemos invitado a lxs afiliadxs, aliadxs y al personal de AWID a escribir sus propias «Cartas de Amor a los Movimientos Feministas». En conjunto, hemos encendido una constelación de movimientos feministas. Nos mantengamos cerca mientras forjamos el viaje y seguimos reuniéndonos, sembrando y desmantelando.

Nota sobre nuestra Colección de Cartas de Amor

Todas estas cartas de amor fueron escritas por activistas que están compartiendo sus diversas experiencias en los movimientos feministas. Algunas pueden incluir contenido delicado o complejo sobre abuso sexual, violencia sexual, conflictos, exclusión, entre otras piezas potencialmente perturbadoras o provocadoras. Aunque las cartas están llenas de amor, cuídate al leerlas.

7. Sintetiza los resultados de la investigación

Ahora que has analizado toda la información que recogiste — de la encuesta, las entrevistas, la investigación secundaria y otras fuentes que hayas utilizado — ya puedes generar el producto final.

En esta sección:

El producto final

El producto final será un documento que resume, analiza y critica la información que obtuviste. Será lo que compartas con la audiencia cuando les presentes tu investigación y se la expliques.

En AWID por lo general elaboramos un informe escrito exhaustivo en el que analizamos cada conjunto de información y sintetizamos todos los resultados que encontramos, para luego generar productos más breves como infografías o resúmenes (que explicaremos en la sección siguiente, «Finalización y formato»).

1. Escribe con claridad

  • Organiza la información según cómo te gustaría contar la historia. Puedes respetar el orden de la encuesta. O reagrupar algunas preguntas para que la conclusión surja de manera fluida y siga una progresión lógica.
  • Adapta el lenguaje al público. Utiliza un lenguaje universal y evita las jergas o los términos demasiado técnicos.

La importancia de la edición

El trabajo de edición implica corregir el texto, garantizar que la redacción sea concisa, revisar que los datos proporcionados sean exactos, señalar las inconsistencias que se deben resolver, acomodar el texto para que fluya y posiblemente también sugerir títulos.

Lo ideal es que la persona que haga este trabajo entienda y conozca tu labor en cuanto a WITM pero que no haya participado directamente de la investigación, así puede aportar una perspectiva nueva.

2. Consigue que el producto tenga un aspecto atractivo

  • Utiliza la información recogida para generar gráficos y tablas. Estas herramientas visuales constituyen una forma atractiva de subrayar los principales resultados de la investigación y validar los análisis.
  • Busca imágenes relevantes que puedan ilustrar el informe.
  • Destaca las principales cifras y/o los testimonios de impacto.

Recuerda: Cuanto más accesible sea el producto, más personas querrán leerlo (y compartirlo).

Volver al comienzo


Revisión y comentarios

Cuando llegues a este momento, ya habrás compilado toda la información, la habrás analizado y convertido en un producto final, que probablemente sea un informe extenso.

1. Pule los resultados

Antes de encarar los pasos siguientes deberías compartir el producto final con organizaciones, activistas y donantes que puedan comentarlo (lxs «consultorxs»).

Este es un momento excelente para pedirles que revisen lo siguiente:

  • ¿Hay algo fundamental que esté ausente delanálisis del panorama actual del financiamiento y sus tendencias?
  • ¿Hay algo fundamental que esté ausente de las conclusiones?
  • ¿Hay alguna inexactitud en la información que necesite ser corregida?
  • ¿Tienen alguna sugerencia general sobre cómo fortalecer el informe para que cumpla con las metas que habías mencionado en el marco de la investigación?

Una vez que hayas incorporado todos los comentarios de las personas a las que consultaste, asegúrate de que la persona a cargo de la edición vuelva a revisar el informe.

Con esto ya tendrás la versión final y completa del informe. Si quieres publicarlo en otros idiomas, ahora es el momento de enviarlo a traducir.

2. Facilita los comentarios

  • Es probable que las personas a las que consultes estén ocupadas con su trabajo habitual. Asegúrate de darles un plazo razonable para que te hagan llegar sus comentarios.
  • Pídeles comentarios breves y específicos, para que les resulte fácil responder. Si quieres, puedes simplemente copiar y pegar los puntos que mencionamos en la sección anterior.
  • Si vas a publicar el informe en varios idiomas, asegúrate de contar con personas que también puedan revisar las versiones finales traducidas de el/los producto/s.

Las personas que revisen el informe (lxs «consultorxs») te estarán haciendo un aporte significativo. Considera la posibilidad de otorgarles alguna forma de reconocimiento.

Volver al comienzo


Paso previo

6. Realiza una investigación secundaria

Paso siguiente

8. Finalización y formato


Duración estimada

• 2 - 5 meses

Personas que se necesitan

• 1 persona (o más) de investigación
• 1 Editor (editor web o si crea un producto en línea)
• Traductores (si ofrece encuesta en varios idiomas)

Recursos necesarios

• Lista de organizaciones de asesores, activistas y financiadores.
• Documento de Síntesis (sección de "marco de su investigación")
• Los resultados de su(s) encuesta(s)
• Preguntas de la entrevista
• Resultados de las entrevistas
• Los datos de la investigación secundaria
• Todos otros datos utilizados en el informe


Paso previo

6. Realiza una investigación secundaria

Paso siguiente

8. Finalización y formato


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Les Économies Féministes

QUE NOUS ADORONS

ÉCONOMIES DES SOINS AGROÉCOLOGIE ET SOUVERAINETÉ ALIMENTAIRECOOPÉRATIVISME FÉMINISTESYNDICALISME FÉMINISTE

Quelle est l’origine de ce projet?

Nous croyons que l'économie, le marché, le système financier et les prémisses sur lesquelles ils reposent sont des domaines critiques pour la lutte féministe.


Ainsi, notre vision pour une économie juste dépasse la promotion des droits et de l'autonomisation des femmes sur le marché. Elle propose d'évaluer le rôle des oppressions liées au genre lors de l'élaboration de mesures économiques, afin de les modifier pour favoriser l'égalité de genre et la justice économique.

Processus

Nous ne partons pas de zéro et nous ne sommes pas seules à tenter de mettre en avant des propositions féministes pour une économie juste. Beaucoup des propositions formulées dans ce document existaient déjà en théorie et aussi dans la pratique, au sein de diverses communautés qui défient et résistent face aux systèmes économiques fondés sur la croissance et le marché.
 
Il est également très important de noter qu'il y a une prise de conscience croissante du fait que les micros solutions n’apportent pas toujours de réponses aux problèmes macros, même si elles représentent des espaces importants pour la construction de la résistance et des mouvements. Certaines alternatives spécifiques peuvent ne pas être en mesure de remédier aux injustices du système capitaliste actuel à l'échelle mondiale.

Objectifs

Cela dit, les alternatives féministes pour une économie juste sont essentielles pour ouvrir des brèches dans le système et pouvoir en tirer des leçons, en faveur d’un changement systémique transformateur. Nous n’avons pas la prétention de proposer un compte-rendu complet et exhaustif sur la manière de créer un modèle économique qui soit juste d’un point de vue féministe, ou même des modèles.

À partir d’un dialogue inter-mouvements avec des syndicats, des mouvements ruraux et paysans et des mouvements environnementaux, nous pouvons néanmoins formuler une série de propositions pour cheminer vers cette vision.

Que voulons-nous changer?

Le modèle néolibéral qui domine l'économie mondiale a démontré à maintes reprises son incapacité à traiter les causes profondes de la pauvreté, des inégalités et de l'exclusion. En réalité, le néolibéralisme a même contribué à provoquer et à exacerber ces injustices.
 
Caractérisées par la mondialisation, la libéralisation, la privatisation, la financiarisation et l'aide conditionnelle, les politiques générales de développement de ces trois dernières décennies ont fait des ravages dans la vie et les moyens de subsistance de tous et toutes. Ces politiques ont également contribué sans faillir à creuser le fossé des inégalités, aux injustices de genre et à une destruction de l'environnement que le monde ne peut plus se permettre de supporter.
 
Il y a encore des personnes qui affirment qu’en donnant carte blanche aux sociétés et aux entreprises pour favoriser la croissance économique, le vent finira par atteindre les voiles de tous les navires.
 
Cependant, la notion du développement dominante au cours des dernières décennies,  qui repose en grande partie sur le principe d’une croissance économique illimitée, traverse actuellement une crise idéologique.
 
Le mythe de la croissance économique en tant que panacée capable de résoudre tous nos problèmes prend l’eau.


Voir également

Notre vision

5 menaces principales

CFA 2023 - breadcrumbs Menu _ FAQ-fr

Snippet FEA Carmen Silva (EN)

Ocupação 9 de Julho

When you come to the center of São Paulo, you will see the building of the Ocupação 9 de Julho - a landmark in the struggle for social housing and an important cultural site. This is the work of The Homeless Workers Movement (Movimento dos Sem-Teto do Centro, MSTC) a movement of over 2000 people that operates in the city center and converts abandoned spaces into housing for low-income workers, children, women, adults, the elderly, migrants and refugees. In this particular building, they provide food and shelter to 122 families. 

Reclaiming the Commons

Definition

There are varied conceptualizations about the commons notes activist and scholar Soma Kishore Parthasarathy.

Conventionally, they are understood as natural resources intended for use by those who depend on their use. However, the concept of the commons has expanded to include the resources of knowledge, heritage, culture, virtual spaces, and even climate. It pre-dates the individual property regime and provided the basis for organization of society. Definitions given by government entities limit its scope to land and material resources.

The concept of the commons rests on the cultural practice of sharing livelihood spaces and resources as nature’s gift, for the common good, and for the sustainability of the common.

Context

Under increasing threat, nations and market forces continue to colonize, exploit and occupy humanity’s commons.

In some favourable contexts, the ‘commons’ have the potential to enable women, especially economically oppressed women, to have autonomy in how they are able to negotiate their multiple needs and aspirations.

Feminist perspective

Patriarchy is reinforced when women and other oppressed genders are denied access and control of the commons.

Therefore, a feminist economy seeks to restore the legitimate rights of communities to these common resources. This autonomy is enabling them to sustain themselves; while evolving more egalitarian systems of governance and use of such resources. A feminist economy acknowledges women’s roles and provides equal opportunities for decision-making, i.e. women as equal claimants to these resources.

Photo: Ana Abelenda / AWID, 2012

Learn more about this proposition

Part of our series of


  Feminist Propositions for a Just Economy
Body

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Image to promote the event Follo the Money for AWID at CSW68

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NORTE DEL CAUCA, COLOMBIA

Asociación de Mujeres Afrodescendientes del Norte del Cauca (ASOM)

 

¡MERECEMOS

MAS!

Key opposition strategies and tactics

Despite their rigidity in matters of doctrine and worldview, anti-rights actors have demonstrated an openness to building new kinds of strategic alliances, to new organizing techniques, and to new forms of rhetoric. As a result, their power in international spaces has increased.


There has been a notable evolution in the strategies of ultra conservative actors operating at this level. They do not only attempt to tinker at the edges of agreements and block certain language, but to transform the framework conceptually and develop alternative standards and norms, and avenues for influence.

Strategy 1: Training of UN delegates

Ultra conservative actors work to create and sustain their relationships with State delegates through regular training opportunities - such as the yearly Global Family Policy Forum - and targeted training materials.

These regular trainings and resources systematically brief delegates on talking points and negotiating techniques to further collaboration towards anti-rights objectives in the human rights system. Delegates also receive curated compilations of ‘consensus language’ and references to pseudo-scientific or statistical information to bolster their arguments.

The consolidated transmission of these messages explains in part why State delegates who take ultra-conservative positions in international human rights debates frequently do so in contradiction with their own domestic legislation and policies.

Strategy 2: Holding international convenings

Anti-rights actors’ regional and international web of meetings help create closer links between ultra conservative Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), States and State blocs, and powerful intergovernmental bodies. The yearly international World Congress of Families is one key example.

These convenings reinforce personal connections and strategic alliances, a key element for building and sustaining movements. They facilitate transnational, trans-religious and dynamic relationship-building around shared issues and interests, which leads to a more proactive approach and more holistic sets of asks at the international policy level on the part of anti-rights actors.

Strategy 3: Placing reservations on human rights agreements

States and State blocs have historically sought to undermine international consensus or national accountability under international human rights norms through reservations to human rights agreements, threatening the universal applicability of human rights.  

The Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) has received by far the most reservations, most of which are based on alleged conflict with religious law. It is well-established international human rights law that evocations of tradition, culture or religion cannot justify violations of human rights, and many reservations to CEDAW are invalid as they are “incompatible with the object and purpose” of CEDAW. Nevertheless, reference to these reservations is continually used by States to dodge their human rights responsibilities.

‘Reservations’ to UN documents and agreements that are not formal treaties - such as Human Rights Council and General Assembly resolutions - are also on the rise.

Strategy 4: Creating a parallel human rights framework

In an alarming development, regressive actors at the UN have begun to co-opt existing rights standards and campaign to develop agreed language that is deeply anti-rights.

The aim is to create and then propagate language in international human rights spaces that validates patriarchal, hierarchical, discriminatory, and culturally relativist norms.

One step towards this end is the drafting of declarative texts, such as the World Family Declaration and the San Jose Articles, that pose as soft human rights law. Sign-ons are gathered from multiple civil society, state, and institutional actors; and they are then used a basis for advocacy and lobbying.

Strategy 5: Developing  alternative ‘scientific’ sources

As part of a strategic shift towards the use of non-religious discourses, anti-rights actors have significantly invested in their own ‘social science’ think tanks. Given oxygen by the growing conservative media, materials from these think tanks are then widely disseminated by conservative civil society groups. The same materials are used as the basis for advocacy at the international human rights level.  

While the goals and motivation of conservative actors derive from their extreme interpretations of religion, culture, and tradition, such regressive arguments are often reinforced through studies that claim intellectual authority. A counter-discourse is thus produced through a heady mix of traditionalist doctrine and social science.

Strategy 6: Mobilizing Youth

This is one of the most effective strategies employed by the religious right and represents a major investment in the future of anti-rights organizing.

Youth recruitment and leadership development, starting at the local level with churches and campuses, are a priority for many conservative actors engaged at the international policy level.  

This strategy has allowed for infiltration of youth-specific spaces at the United Nations, including at the Commission on the Status of Women, and creates a strong counterpoint to progressive youth networks and organizations.

Key anti-rights strategies

Strategy 7: Defunding and delegitimizing human rights mechanisms

When it comes to authoritative expert mechanisms like the UN Special Procedures and Treaty Monitoring Bodies and operative bodies like the UN agencies, regressive groups realize their potential for influence is much lower than with political mechanisms[1].

In response, anti-rights groups spread the idea that UN agencies are ‘overstepping their mandate,’ that the CEDAW Committee and other Treaty Bodies have no authority to interpret their treaties, or that Special Procedures are partisan experts working outside of their mandate. Anti-rights groups have also successfully lobbied for the defunding of agencies such as the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

This invalidation of UN mechanisms gives fuel to state impunity. Governments, when under international scrutiny, can defend their action on the basis that the reviewing mechanism is itself faulty or overreaching.

Strategy 8: Organizing online

Conservative non-state actors increasingly invest in social media and other online platforms to promote their activities, campaign, and widely share information from international human rights spaces.

The Spanish organization CitizenGo, for example, markets itself as the conservative version of Change.org, spearheading petitions and letter-writing campaigns. One recent petition, opposing the establishment of a UN international day on safe abortion, gathered over 172,000 signatures.


Overarching Trends:

  • Learning from the organizing strategies of feminists and other progressives.
  • Replicating and adapting successful national-level tactics for the international sphere.
  • Moving from an emphasis on ‘symbolic protest’ to becoming subversive system ‘insiders.’

By understanding the strategies employed by anti-rights actors, we can be more effective in countering them.

 


[1] The fora that are state-led, like the General Assembly, the Human Rights Council, and UN conferences like the Commission on the Status of Women and the Commission on Population and Development


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