Adolfo Lujan | Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Mass demonstration in Madrid on International Women's Day
Multitudinaria manifestación en Madrid en el día internacional de la mujer

Priority Areas

Supporting feminist, women’s rights and gender justice movements to thrive, to be a driving force in challenging systems of oppression, and to co-create feminist realities.

Advancing Universal Rights and Justice

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Uprooting Fascisms and Fundamentalisms

Across the globe, feminist, women’s rights and gender justice defenders are challenging the agendas of fascist and fundamentalist actors. These oppressive forces target women, persons who are non-conforming in their gender identity, expression and/or sexual orientation, and other oppressed communities.

Discriminatory ideologies are undermining and co-opting our human rights systems and standards,  with the aim of making rights the preserve of only certain groups. In the face of this, the Advancing Universal Rights and Justice (AURJ) initiative promotes the universality of rights - the foundational principle that human rights belong to everyone, no matter who they are, without exception.

We create space for feminist, women’s rights and gender justice movements and allies to recognize, strategize and take collective action to counter the influence and impact of anti-rights actors. We also seek to advance women’s rights and feminist frameworks, norms and proposals, and to protect and promote the universality of rights.

Our actions

Through this initiative, we:

  • Build knowledge: We support feminist, women’s rights and gender justice movements by disseminating and popularizing knowledge and key messages about anti-rights actors, their strategies, and impact in the international human rights systems through AWID’s leadership role in the collaborative platform, the Observatory on the Universality of Rights (OURs)*.
  • Advance feminist agendas: We ally ourselves with partners in international human rights spaces including, the Human Rights Council, the Commission on Population and Development, the Commission on the Status of Women and the UN General Assembly.
  • Create and amplify alternatives: We engage with our members to ensure that international commitments, resolutions and norms reflect and are fed back into organizing in other spaces locally, nationally and regionally.
  • Mobilize solidarity action: We take action alongside women human rights defenders (WHRDs) including trans and intersex defenders and young feminists, working to challenge fundamentalisms and fascisms and call attention to situations of risk.  

 

Related Content

Type

Snippet Watch Stories (EN)

Learn more about the impact of the forum through these stories

I am a women human rights defender (WHRD) and am currently under threat. Where can I go for help?

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Edith "Edie" Windsor

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Category
LGBTQI Rights
Region
North America
Date of death / disappearance
Cause of death / disappearance

Natural / Muerte natural / Mort naturelle 

A few different people from my organization are planning to attend the Forum. Is there a group discount for the Forum?

AWID does not provide group discounts, but we do provide registration discounts to members. (Click here to learn more about becoming a member)

July 2015

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Women's Forum on Financing for Gender Equality

  • The Forum took place on 10 July 2015 in Addis Ababa and convened feminists, grassroots women, gender advocates, academics and representatives of women’s rights organizations/networks with specific inputs by UN representatives and other policy makers.
  • The objectives of the Women's Forum were to: share information on the state of play in the latest FfD negotiations; jointly analyze the FfD panorama and follow-up; build a common women’s rights positioning; and strategize on how to meaningfully and substantively engage from a feminist perspective at the Addis FfD Conference.
  • The Women's Forum was organized by the Women's Working Group on FfD, in collaboration with FEMNET, African Women's Development Fund (AWDF) and the Post 2015 Women's Coalition with support from UN Women.
  • Read the Women's Working Group reaction to the Addis Ababa Action Agenda

CSO FfD Forum

  • The CSO FfD Forum took place in Addis Ababa on 11-12 July 2015 and aimed to: inform participating CSOs on the state of play of the official process and coordinate civil society participation in the 3rd FfD Conference; develop a collective CSO Forum Declaration as well as the CSO messages for the FfD Conference Roundtables, the CSO FfD Group-led side events and any other opportunities that might emerge; and plan and organize future areas of CSO engagement on Financing for Development, beyond the 3rd FfD Conference.
  • Read the Declaration from the Addis Ababa Civil Society Forum on Financing for Development
  • For more information, please visit the CSO FfD Group's website or contact the Addis Ababa CSO Coordinating Group (addiscoordinatinggroup@gmail.com).

The Third UN International Conference on Financing for Development

  • The third Conference on Financing For Development took place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 13-16 July 2015 and focused on: assessing the progress made in the implementation of the 2002 Monterrey Consensus and the 2008 Doha Declaration; addressing new and emerging issues, including in the context of the recent multilateral efforts to promote international development cooperation. Taking into account: the current evolving development cooperation landscape; the interrelationship of all sources of development finance; the synergies between financing objectives across the three dimensions of sustainable development (economic, social and environmental); and the need to support the United Nations development agenda beyond 2015; and reinvigorating and strengthening the financing for development follow-up process.
  • The Addis Ababa Action Agenda was adopted on 15 July 2015 by Heads of State, Governments and High Representatives at the UN.
  • The feeling however from developing countries, CSOs and more specifically women's organisations was that the Addis Ababa Action Agenda failed to meet the target. The Women's Working Group expressed its strong disappointment and demanded structural changes in the global economic governance and development architecture. Read their reaction to the outcome document. Hundreds of civil society organizations and networks from around the world also expressed deep concerns and reservations. Read their response to the outcome document.

ours 2021 - chapter 2 en

Chapter 2

Understanding the Context of Anti-Rights Threats

The rising power of anti-rights actors is not happening in a vacuum. Understanding the rise of ultra-nationalism, unchecked corporate power, growing repression, and diminishing civic space is key to contextualize the anti-rights threats we face today.

Read more

I can’t attend the Forum in person, how else can I participate?

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More than just an event, the AWID Forum is part of our Feminist Realities Journey, with many spaces to come together, online and offline, for sharing, discussing, strategizing and co-creating feminist realities.

Learn more about the Feminist Realities Journey and everything that will happen before the Forum. Join our mailing list to stay tuned for Post-Forum announcements!

We are exploring options to participate virtually at the Forum and we will share information when we know what we can offer.

CFA 2023 - Submit Button - EN

Events

Beijing Unfettered: the Power of Young Feminist Movements

Ursula K Le Guin

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Category
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
Region
North America
Date of birth
Date of death / disappearance
Cause of death / disappearance

Natural

Ursula was an American novelist who worked mainly in the genres of fantasy and science fiction.

She found fame with The Left Hand Of Darkness, which imagines a future society where people are ambisexual – they have no fixed sex. It explores the effects of gender and sex in society, and was one of the first major feminist science fiction books. Ursula was inspiring in her subversive and original writing, and also for the themes of feminism and freedom she held so dearly.

In a 1983 address at Mills College in California, she told graduates: “Why should a free woman with a college education either fight Macho-man or serve him? Why should she live her life on his terms? I hope you live without the need to dominate, and without the need to be dominated.”

 

 

Ursula K Le Guin, USA

CFA 2023 - Submit application card - ar

نرحب بالطلبات عبر مجموعة كاملة من المواضيع والتقاطعات المهمة للحركات النسوية وحركات العدالة الجندرية. 

تقديم الطلب

Jobs Board

Closed | Parental Cover - Information, Communication and Media (ICM) Coordinator

Kagendo Murungi

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Category
LGBTQI Rights
Region
Africa
Sub Sahara Africa
North America
Date of death / disappearance
Cause of death / disappearance

Natural

Kagendo is remembered fondly by family and friends as a fierce African feminist activist, artist, and filmmaker.

She dedicated over 20 years to advocate for the rights and dignity of African LGBTIQ and gender non conforming people.

Kagendo’s colleagues remember her as someone with a jovial personality, fierce conviction, and love for life. Kagendo died due to natural causes at her home in Harlem on December 27th, 2017.

On Kagendo’s passing Kenyan writer and activist Shailja Patel noted “Kagendo's lifelong commitment to connecting the dots between all oppressions, showing how colonialism fostered homophobia on the African continent, making Kenya a country where queer Kenyans and free women could live and thrive.”

 

Kagendo Murungi, Kenya

Forum 2024 - FAQ - Funding Your Participation EN

Funding Your Participation

Juana Ramírez Santiago

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Category
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
Region
Latin America
Cause of death / disappearance

Killed

Juana was one of the founders and current Board Member of Red de Mujeres Ixiles de Nebaj, an Indigenous women’s rights organization that is a member of the Mesoamerican Initiative of WHRDs (IM-Defensoras).

She was also a midwife and a mother of 7 children. Juana had received death threats that were reported to the Prosecutor’s office. Juana is the third Indigenous WHRD murdered in the area during 2018. The Guatemala Ombudsman reports that a total of 20 HRDs were killed in the country this year. 

Juana Ramírez Santiago was shot dead by unidentified attackers while crossing a bridge in Nebak, Quiché, Guatemala. Investigations to identify the perpetrators are ongoing.

 

Juana Ramírez Santiago, Guatemala

CFA 2023 - Intro FAQ - thai

การประชุมนานาชาติ AWID ครั้งที่ 15

เวทีการประชุมนานาชาติ AWID เป็นทั้งกิจกรรมชุมชนระดับโลกและพื้นที่ของการเปลี่ยนแปลงของปัจเจก บุคคลอย่างสิ้นเชิง เป็นการประชุมที่ไม่เหมือนใคร คือเป็นที่รวบรวมนักสตรีนิยม นักปกป้องสิทธิสตรี ความยุติธรรมทางเพศ LBTQI+ และพันธมิตรในขบวนการเคลื่อนไหวเพื่อมนุษยชาติอันหลากหลาย เพื่อเชื่อมต่อ เยียวยาและเติบโต     เวทีนานาชาตินี้เป็นพื้นที่ที่นักสตรีนิยมจากทั่วทุกมุมโลก รวมถึงจากประเทศในกลุ่มโลกใต้ และชุมชนชายขอบที่ไม่ได้รับการเหลียวแลมาอย่างยาวนาน เป็นศูนย์กลางในการวาง ยุทธศาสตร์ร่วมกัน และเคลื่อนไหวเพื่อความยุติธรรมทางสังคม เพื่อเปลี่ยนอำนาจ สร้างพันธมิตร และ สร้างโลกที่แตกต่างและดีขึ้น

เมื่อผู้คนทั่วโลกมารวมตัวกันทั้งในฐานะปัจเจกบุคคลและองค์กรเคลื่อนไหว เราสามารถสร้างพลังอันยิ่งใหญ่ จึงขอเชิญท่านร่วมกิจกรรมกับเราที่กรุงเทพฯ ประเทศไทยในปี 2567  มาร้องเพลง เต้นรำ วาดฝัน และลุกขึ้นพร้อมกัน

วันที่:        2–5 ธันวาคม 2567
สถานที่:     กรุงเทพฯ ประเทศไทย; และทางออนไลน์
ผู้เข้าร่วม: นักสตรีนิยมจากทั่วโลกเข้าร่วมด้วยตนเอง ณ สถานที่จัดงานประมาณ  2,500 คน และเข้าร่วม
ทางออนไลน์ 3,000 คน