WHRDs are self-identified women and lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LBTQI) people and others who defend rights and are subject to gender-specific risks and threats due to their human rights work and/or as a direct consequence of their gender identity or sexual orientation.
WHRDs are subject to systematic violence and discrimination due to their identities and unyielding struggles for rights, equality and justice.
The WHRD Program collaborates with international and regional partners as well as the AWID membership to raise awareness about these risks and threats, advocate for feminist and holistic measures of protection and safety, and actively promote a culture of self-care and collective well being in our movements.
Risks and threats targeting WHRDs
WHRDs are exposed to the same types of risks that all other defenders who defend human rights, communities, and the environment face. However, they are also exposed to gender-based violence and gender-specific risks because they challenge existing gender norms within their communities and societies.
By defending rights, WHRDs are at risk of:
Physical assault and death
Intimidation and harassment, including in online spaces
Judicial harassment and criminalization
Burnout
A collaborative, holistic approach to safety
We work collaboratively with international and regional networks and our membership
to raise awareness about human rights abuses and violations against WHRDs and the systemic violence and discrimination they experience
to strengthen protection mechanisms and ensure more effective and timely responses to WHRDs at risk
We work to promote a holistic approach to protection which includes:
emphasizing the importance of self-care and collective well being, and recognizing that what care and wellbeing mean may differ across cultures
documenting the violations targeting WHRDs using a feminist intersectional perspective;
promoting the social recognition and celebration of the work and resilience of WHRDs ; and
building civic spaces that are conducive to dismantling structural inequalities without restrictions or obstacles
Our Actions
We aim to contribute to a safer world for WHRDs, their families and communities. We believe that action for rights and justice should not put WHRDs at risk; it should be appreciated and celebrated.
Promoting collaboration and coordination among human rights and women’s rights organizations at the international level to strengthen responses concerning safety and wellbeing of WHRDs.
Supporting regional networks of WHRDs and their organizations, such as the Mesoamerican Initiative for WHRDs and the WHRD Middle East and North Africa Coalition, in promoting and strengthening collective action for protection - emphasizing the establishment of solidarity and protection networks, the promotion of self-care, and advocacy and mobilization for the safety of WHRDs;
Increasing the visibility and recognition of WHRDs and their struggles, as well as the risks that they encounter by documenting the attacks that they face, and researching, producing, and disseminating information on their struggles, strategies, and challenges:
Mobilizing urgent responses of international solidarity for WHRDs at risk through our international and regional networks, and our active membership.
Related Content
Snippet FEA No feminist economies without feminist unions (ES)
¡No hay economías feministas sin sindicatos feministas!
A través de la organización laboral y sindical, Sopo, Sabrina y Linda no solo luchan por los derechos de lxs mujeres, lxs trabajadorxs esenciales, lxs trabajadorxs migrantes y lxs trabajadores sexuales, sino por los derechos de todxs lxs trabajadorxs.
La lucha para acabar con la explotación de lxs trabajadores es una lucha feminista, y nos muestra que no hay economías feministas sin sindicatos feministas.
"She was not a person. She was a power."
- a fellow activist remembering Navleen Kumar
Navleen Kumar was a fervent land rights and social justice activist in India.
With commitment and integrity, she worked for more than a decade to protect and restore the lands of Indigenous people (adivasi) in Thane district, an area taken away by property and land developers using such means as coercion and intimidation. She fought this injustice and crime through legal interventions at different courts, realizing that manipulation of land records was a recurrent feature in most cases of land acquisition. In one of the cases, that of the Wartha (a tribal family), Navleen found out that the family had been cheated with the complicity of government officials.
Through her work, she helped restore the land back to the Wartha family and continued to pursue other cases of adivasi land transfers.
“Her paper on the impact of land alienation on adivasi women and children traces the history and complexities of tribal alienation from the 1970s, when middle class families began to move to the extended suburbs of Mumbai as the real estate value in the city spiralled.
Housing complexes mushroomed in these suburbs, and the illiterate tribals paid the price for this. Prime land near the railway lines fetched a high price and builders swooped down on this belt like vultures, to grab land from tribals and other local residents by illegal means.” -Jaya Menon, Justice and Peace Commission
During the course of her activism, Navleen received numerous threats and survived several attempts on her life. Despite these, she continued working on what was not only important to her but contributed to changing the lives and realities of many she supported in the struggle for social justice.
Navleen was stabbed to death on 19 June 2002 in her apartment building. Two local gangsters were arrested for her murder.
FRMag - Las Triple (ES)
Las Triple Cripples: ¡hablemos de sexo, nena!
por Nandini Tanya Lallmon
Olajumoke «Jay» Abdullahi y Kym Oliver son feministas revolucionarias en más de un sentido. (...)
Tendencias anti-derechos en los sistemas regionales de derechos humanos
Chapter 6
En la Comisión Africana y en el Sistema Interamericano, los actores antiderechos impulsan nociones esencialistas de cultura y género para impedir el avance de los derechos y socavar las responsabilidades. Como vemos, los actores anti-derechos están ejerciendo su influencia sobre los sistemas regionales de derechos humanos, así como en los espacios internacionales.
La Comisión Africana de Derechos Humanos y de los Pueblos ha comenzado a definir a los derechos sexuales y de las mujeres como un menoscabo a su capacidad de ocuparse de los «derechos reales» y como contrarios a los «valores africanos», con lo cual se establece un precedente anti-derechos preocupante. La anulación del estatus de observador de la Coalición de Lesbianas Africanas es un ejemplo de esta tendencia y muestra la forma en que el espacio para el involucramiento feminista panafricanista está siendo restringido.
En la Organización de Estados Americanos (OEA) y en el Sistema Interamericano de Protección de los Derechos Humanos, las estrategias anti-derechos incluyen la oenegización de grupos religiosos, la utilización de discursos seculares, y la cooptación de marcos de discriminación. La influencia antiderechos se ha materializado de diversas maneras, que incluyen la intimidación de activistas trans y la obstrucción de la introducción de lenguaje progresista en las resoluciones.
Índice de contenidos
Silenciamiento de feministas en el Sistema Africano de Derechos Humanos
Grupos anti-derechos en América Latina: Asamblea General de la Organización de Estados Americanos (OEA) y el Sistema Interamericano de Protección de los Derechos Humanos
A 30 años de la adopción de la Declaración y Plataforma de Acción de Beijing, existe una ola creciente de fascismos que ejercen gran poder e influencia en los espacios multilaterales, todo un retroceso para las conquistas de igualdad de género y la protección de los derechos humanos en el mundo entero.
En torno a la CSW69, estamos organizando, en conjunto y de forma horizontal, una serie de valientes espacios sobre el terreno y en línea a fin de compartir estrategias y forjar un poder feminista más allá de Beijing +30. Nuestra presencia colectiva trastorna las prácticas institucionales de exclusión en dichos espacios y, a la vez, apoya los procesos de organización de los movimientos en torno a las alternativas feministas a los sistemas de opresión.
Súmate a las conversaciones desde el 10 al 21 de marzo de 2025, mientras transformamos de forma colectiva la CSW69 en espacios para y sobre la resistencia y la solidaridad.
Snippet FEA We are living in a world left (FR)
Nous vivons dans un monde où la destruction de la Nature alimente notre économie mondiale actuelle.
Lo personal es político, y la apasionada y valiente Nadyn Jouny personificó este mantra feminista. Nadyn experimentó de primera mano el dolor de la violencia estructural de los sistemas legales que despojan a las mujeres de sus derechos.
Cuando Nadyn decidió solicitar el divorcio, los tribunales religiosos chiítas, bajo las Leyes de Estatuto Personal Libanesas, le negaron la custodia de su joven hijo Karam. Nadyn, como tantas otras mujeres del Líbano y de otros países, se vio atrapada entre el dolor imposible de dejar una relación no deseada y abusiva y de perder a la vez los derechos sobre su hijo. Sin embargo, Nadyn se defendió, y lo habría de hacerlo hasta el último día.
Nadyn utilizó su habilidad con los medios de comunicación para convertirse en una voz franca a favor de las mujeres que luchan contra la discriminación en la legislación familiar, en el Líbano y a nivel internacional. Nadyn cofundó el grupo autofinanciado "Protecting Lebanese Women" [Protegiendo a las Mujeres Libanesas] (PLW, por sus siglas en inglés) y se unió a muchas otras madres libanesas que se enfrentaban a problemas similares de custodia. Juntas, trabajaron para crear conciencia sobre las injusticias extremas a las que se enfrentaban, a nivel nacional, protestaron ante los tribunales religiosos por sus derechos y, a nivel internacional, llamaron la atención de los medios de comunicación.
Nadyn también trabajó con ABAAD - Resource Center for Gender Equality [Centro de Recursos para la Igualdad de Género], otra organización por los derechos de las mujeres en el Líbano, para realizar campañas en favor de los derechos de las mujeres, la igualdad en la legislación familiar y relativa a las custodias y contra los matrimonios forzados y precoces.
Para muchxs de sus colegas, Nadyn llegó a "simbolizar la lucha de una madre libanesa contra la supresión y la misoginia de todo tipo" (en inglés), al utilizar "su experiencia personal y trayectoria individual de empoderamiento, dio a otras mujeres esperanza para que ellas también pudieran ser un catalizador para el cambio positivo" - ABAAD - Centro de Recursos para la Igualdad entre los Géneros, Líbano.
El 6 de octubre de 2019, Nadyn murió trágicamente en un accidente de automóvil cuando se dirigía a protestar por los injustos aumentos de impuestos en un país que ya se enfrentaba a una espiral de crisis financiera. Nadyn Jouny tenía solo 29 años en el momento de su muerte.
FRMag - Roots of Love and Resilience
Kunyit Asam : Les racines de l’amour et de la résilience
par Prinka Saraswati
Les cycles menstruels sont généralement d’une durée de 27 à 30 jours. Pendant cette période, les règles elles-mêmes ne durent que 5 à 7 jours. L’épuisement, les sautes d’humeur et les crampes sont le résultat de l’inflammation qui se produit alors. (...)
Doris Valenzuela Angulo était une activiste sociale, leader et défenseure des droits humains afrodescendante de Buenaventura, en Colombie. Elle faisait partie du réseau national Comunidades Construyendo Paz en Colombia (CONPAZ, Communautés construisant la paix en Colombie) composé d’organisations présentes dans les communautés affectées par le conflit armé œuvrant en faveur de la non-violence et la justice socio-environnementale.
Doris s’opposait à la violence paramilitaire continue, aux pressions incessantes des mégaprojets cherchant à déplacer sa communauté, et à la complicité de l’État. Confrontée à l’un des contextes les plus difficiles de son pays, elle joua un rôle de premier plan dans l’initiative de résistance non-violente sans précédent Espacio Humanitario Puente Nayero, un lieu urbain conçu pour assurer la cohésion communautaire, la sécurité, la créativité et l’action collective.
Ce combat non-violent unique en son genre des familles de l’Espacio Humanitario Puente Nayero attira l’attention et le soutien des agences tant locales qu’internationales. En septembre 2014, la Commission interaméricaine des droits de l’Homme accorda des mesures de protection préventives à la communauté, ordonnant au gouvernement colombien d’adopter des mesures nécessaires en vue de protéger la vie et l’intégrité physique des habitant·e·s. Les menaces et la violence des paramilitaires se poursuivirent néanmoins. Malgré l’assassinat de son fils Cristian Dainer Aragón Valenzuela en juillet 2015,Doris continua à mettre toute son énergie à éviter le recrutement forcé des enfants et des jeunes par les néo-militaires. Elle devint alors également une cible, recevant constamment des menaces pour son activisme et le travail qu’elle accomplissait.
Les incessantes agressions et menaces de mort dont elle était l’objet forcèrent Doris à quitter la Colombie. Elle vécut en Espagne de février 2017 à février 2018, dans le cadre du programme de protection temporaire d’Amnesty International pour les défenseur·e·s des droits humains en danger.
Doris a été assassinée en avril 2018 à Murcie, en Espagne, par son ex-compagnon. Elle n’avait que 39 ans.
Hommages :
« Doris, cette année passée avec toi nous a montré combien une personne peut avoir la capacité de transformer et créer de l’espoir en dépit des événements profondément négatifs et dévastateurs qui jalonnent sa vie... Nous poursuivons notre engagement à défendre tous les droits humains. Ton courage et ta lumière nous guideront toujours. » - Montserrat Román, Amnesty International, Groupe de La Palma, Espagne
Extrait de « Mots pour Doris Valenzuela Angulo », d’Elsa López
« ... Tu le savais. Tu l’as toujours su. Et malgré tout cela, tu as résisté sans faillir à tant d’injustice, de misère, de persécution. Tu t’es élevée, fière et acharnée, contre ceux qui continuaient à vouloir que tu abandonnes tout espoir, que tu t’abaisses, que tu te rendes. Debout, tu as réclamé haut et fort ta liberté et la nôtre, qui était la tienne. Rien ni personne n’est parvenu à paralyser tes efforts pour changer le monde et le rendre plus généreux et plus vivable. Tu vis parmi nous, aujourd’hui plus vivante que jamais malgré la mort. Tu vis encore par tes actes, par ton courage, par ta grandeur lorsque tu pleurais pour cette terre promise que tu invoquais à chacun de tes cris, pour tous ces déserts que tu as habités. Toi. Toujours en vie. Doris Valenzuela Angulo.
Ce ne sont que des mots. Je sais. Je le sais, moi aussi. Mais les mots nous unissent, nous protègent, nous donnent la force et le soutien nécessaires pour continuer à aller vers la lumière que tu défendais tant... »
FRMag - Armenians
Armenians, Feminism is our Past and Future
by Sophia Armen
Like it or not fierce ungerhouis have been part and parcel to our histories of resistance and are here to stay. (...)
A Joy to the World: Six Questions with Naike Ledan
Interviewed by Chinelo Onwualu
Naike Ledan is a social justice defendant, a committed feminist that brings forward 20 years of experience in human rights and health justice advocacy, women’s empowerment, the fight for universal access to basic services and social inclusion, as well as civil society capacity building. She has built extensive work in Canada, West and southern Africa, as well as in Haiti, in civil rights advocacy, capacity building for CSOs, while emphasising the social determinants of structural exclusion. She values the principles of shared leadership, anticolonial, anti-oppressive, and anti-patriarchal spaces.
Chinelo You’re billed as a trans rights activist; I’m curious about how you made that journey.
Naike So, I grew up in Haiti until I was 18, then I lived in Montreal for 19 years. Coming back to Haiti in 2016, I thought I would be coming back home, but the place had changed and I had to readjust. I did not necessarily reconnect in the way that I’d expected to with childhood family and friends. I came back as an expat with a comfortable work situation, and I felt very much like a foreigner for a very long time. And at the same time, I felt very much at home because of the language, the understood silence, the not having to explain when we start singing a commercial – you know, that thing we share, that energy, that space, that spirit.
My return to self-love – I would call “rebirth” – coinciding with giving birth to my first child, giving birth to myself, and falling in love with my queerness or same-gender lovingness. (Photo credit: Naike Ledan)
What helped me was, I loved the work of going into the country and documenting people’s knowledge. So I left the comfort. I became a country director of a regional organisation that was queer as fuck! Most of my work was to find resources and build the capacity of civil society. My strategy was to go into the countryside, look for all these little organizations, help build their capacity, and fund them. I was not interested in politicians and shaking hands and taking pictures . I had a very good ally, Charlot Jeudy – the [queer] activist that got killed three years ago in his house. We got very close after an Afro-queer film festival we were planning got banned in Haiti. But it made a lot of noise and sparked conversations about queerness everywhere, so Charlot introduced me to every little CSO in every little corner of the country. And I would just be there to help organisation[s] with registering legally or building their strategic plan. So it’s been a lot of these kinds of work that made me a queer activist and by extension, a trans activist. Although I don’t call myself that – an activist. It’s such a loaded word, you know? And it’s something people call you. I think I’m just a lover and a fighter .
Chinelo Tell me about the workshop you conducted with AWID for the festival. What was it about and what was the context?
My deep self awareness during my childhood years and my engagement in questioning inequalities and injustice at a very very young age (+/- 4 years old). (Photo credit: Naike Ledan)
Naike International media doesn’t really talk about Haiti, but with a political environment that is as bad as ours, the economic environment is even more catastrophic. Being a more middle class Haitian, speaking different languages, having different passports, I was initially hesitant to take the space. But I often see myself as a bridge more than someone that would talk about themself. That is how I came to invite Semi, who is a brilliant young trans woman from outside Port-au-Prince, to take the space to talk for herself and walk us through the ecosystem of the realities for trans women in Haiti. We ended up building a session about uninclusive feminism – or, I would say, formal feminist spaces – and how trans girls in Haiti do not have spaces where they can contribute to women’s knowledge and sharing of women’s realities. So the AWID festival was the opportunity for me to give the space to the women who should have it. We had a wonderful time; we had wine online while hosting the conversation. My co-facilitator, Semi, shared what it is like to be a trans child/girl/woman at different stages of her life. She also shared the dangers of the street, of poverty, of exclusion, of “not passing,” and her victories as well.
Chinelo What is the relationship of trans women to feminist organizations in Haiti? What has been your experience with that?
Naike It’s been really hard – heartbreaking, actually – the experience of trans women in Haiti. From not existing at all to just being extremely sexualized. The other thing that’s been happening is how they’re being killed, and how those killings have gone unreported in the media. This is how non-existent, how erased trans women are. They’re everywhere but not in job settings, not in feminist settings, not in organizational settings. Not even in LGBT organizations. It’s only recently, and because of a lot of advocacy push, that some of these organization are kind of readjusting, but in feminist spaces, this is still out of the question. We are still having to deal with the old exclusionary discourse of “They’re not women. Of course, if they can pass…” The culture of passing, it’s a risk management conversation – how much you pass and how much you don’t pass and what it means for your body and the violence it inflicts. In the trans-exclusionary realities we live in, which are reproduced in a lot of feminist spaces, those that pass completely may be considered girls, but only to a certain extent. But how about falling in love, how about having a conversation, how about being in the closet, how about wanting a certain aesthetic, or a career? So really, the conversation about hormone therapy becomes about risk reduction, as Semi herself shared at the workshop. But we don’t have the option of hormone therapy, we don’t have the medical framework nor the system to support those who would like to pursue that option.
Chinelo When you talk about the way that trans people and queer people are thought of in society, it sounds like it might be similar to Nigeria, which can be a deeply homophobic environment.
Naike Haiti is a very complex country in a very beautiful way. Nothing is simple, you know, nothing is ever one way. Haitians are very tolerant – and they’re also very homophobic. You’re going to find regions in the countryside where people aren’t that homophobic at all because all the Vodou temples there, and this is a religion that respects life. One basic principle of the Vodou religion is that all children are children. So, there is no right or wrong in the religion. For the longest time, people thought of Haiti as a haven, a place where people are tolerant – we’re talking 70s, 80s, pre-HIV, 90s even. Then you had the earthquake [in 2010] where around 300,000 people died. And then all this money came from the south of the US through the Evangelicals to rebuild the country and find Jesus. So, the homophobia in Haiti is very recent. In the depth, in the heart of the soul of the culture, I cannot really say that it is homophobic. But in the everyday life, it surely lands on the skin of queer people, that violence. And that of women, of poor women, of dark women as well, because colorism runs deep in the Caribbean.
Chinelo How have you managed this? What’s been your strategy for survival?
My return to Haiti as part of my decolonizing process, and choosing to physically position my senses and my family’s senses to magic and blackness uncompromisingly. (Photo credit: Naike Ledan)
Naike I’m really in love with my work. I love working. When I first arrived, I was working with this horrible NGO but I was doing amazing work. I was always in the countryside, conversing and learning from people, from women. And that filled my heart for so long because I’m very much in love with my culture, with black people, with black women – old black women, black babies. It just fills me up in a spiritual way. When we were in Canada my kids were in these all-white schools and tokenized. They did not speak Creole nor French. And now, they’re running free in the yard and starting to fight in Creole. I also found hubs of survival with the people I met. I created bonds with the queers and others who were weirdos like me and it’s been really wonderful. But now I’m struggling because I don’t feel safe in Haiti anymore. We have about 40 kidnappings per week in Port-Au-Prince – and it’s been like that since 2018. I’ve developed anxiety and panic attacks. So It’s time to go, and I’ve been asking myself, “where is home?” I spent 19 years in Montreal but I never felt at home there. When I left, I never missed it so I don’t want to go back. I’ve been crying a lot lately because it feels like entering a second exile.
Chinelo What’s your relationship to pleasure, leisure, and rest?
Naike My relationship with pleasure, leisure, and rest are for me one and the same. It is the lived moment when I indulge in the heat of the sun on my face for example. It is pleasure, leisure, and rest at the same time.
Pleasure: My go-to space, most solely a haven of celebration of myself. I reserve myself the power and the right to be loud or quiet in the enjoyment of the pleasure I experience. All the pleasure I viciously and abundantly indulge in, including and not limited to the pleasure of solitude and silence.
Leisure: biking, music festivals, eating, wine discoveries, dancing in Haitian traditional Vodou dances are amongst many that occur at the moment.
Rest: is what I live for. As an overachiever and a person that is literally in love with work, it is a paradox how lazy I am. No one knows that because all of what the world sees is this: an accomplished overworker. They do not know how I can just, uncompromisingly and profoundly indulge in idleness.
ExploreTransnational Embodiments
This journal edition in partnership with Kohl: a Journal for Body and Gender Research, will explore feminist solutions, proposals and realities for transforming our current world, our bodies and our sexualities.
نصدر النسخة هذه من المجلة بالشراكة مع «كحل: مجلة لأبحاث الجسد والجندر»، وسنستكشف عبرها الحلول والاقتراحات وأنواع الواقع النسوية لتغيير عالمنا الحالي وكذلك أجسادنا وجنسانياتنا.
