Awadia Ajabna
Advancing Universal Rights and Justice
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.
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Movement in focus:
Filter your search by funders’ priority support areas that speak to your organizing efforts
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Where is the Money? An Evidence-Driven Call to Resource Feminist Organizing
This new report shines a light on the resourcing realities of feminist and women’s rights organizations amid unprecedented political and financial upheaval. Drawing on over a decade of analysis since AWID last Where is the Money? report (Watering the Leaves, Starving the Roots), it takes stock of the gains, gaps, and growing threats in the funding landscape.
The report celebrates the power of movement-led initiatives to shape resourcing on their own terms, while sounding the alarm on massive aid cuts, shrinking philanthropy, and escalating backlash.
It calls on funders to invest abundantly in feminist organizing as essential infrastructure for justice and liberation. It also invites movements to reimagine bold, self-determined models of resourcing rooted in care, solidarity and collective power.
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كلمة العدد
فقدان الكلام
عندما يصبح عملنا المتجسّد مادةً ربحية في أيدي الأنظمة التي نسعى إلى إزالتها فلا عجب أنّ جنسانيّاتنا وملذّاتنا توضَع جانباً من جديد، لا سيّما أنّها ليست مُربِحة بما فيه الكفاية. لقد تساءلنا، في مواقف عدّة خلال إنتاج هذا العدد، ما الذي سيحدث إذا رفضنا مراعاة خدمات الرأسمالية الأساسية؟ لكن هل نجرؤ على هذا التساؤل وقد أنهكنا العالم؟ ربما يتمّ تجاهل جنسانيّاتنا بهذه السهولة لأنها لا تُعتَبَر أشكالاً من أشكال الرعاية. ربما ما نحتاجه هو أن نعيد تصوّر الملذّة كشكلٍ من أشكال الرعاية الجذرية، تكون أيضاً مناهضة للرأسمالية وللمؤسساتية.
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What We Demand:
- Climate finance as reparations: grants, not loans
- Direct funding to frontline communities
- Phasing out fossil fuels NOW
- Defunding military and prison complexes
- Corporate accountability mechanisms
- Enabling environments for feminist alternatives to thrive
- The liberation of Palestine, Congo and Sudan
- Debt cancellation and an end to austerity
- Rapid, direct and flexible funding to frontline communities
- Decolonial feminist just transitions
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الصياغات النسوية للرسائل النصّية ذات المحتوى الجنسي:الدُّعابة الجنسانيّة في فضاء الثورة النسوية الرقمية
تشينيلو أونوالو
في الثاني من أيلول/ سبتمير 2021، التمّ شمل مجموعة رائعة من الناشطات النسويات والمناديات بالعدالة الاجتماعية ضمن فعاليات مهرجان (AWID Crear | Résister | Transform). لم يقتصر هدف اجتماعهنّ على مشاركة استراتيجيات المقاومة وعمليات الابتكار الخلّاقة المشتركة التي ترمي إلى تغيير العالم. لقد اجتمعت الناشطات ليتبادلن الغزَل الإباحي على «تويتر».
AWID Forum: Co-creating Feminist Futures
In September 2016, the 13th AWID international Forum brought together in Brazil over 1800 feminists and women’s rights advocates in a spirit of resistance and resilience.
This section highlights the gains, learnings and resources that came out of our rich conversations. We invite you to explore, share and comment!
What has happened since 2016?
One of the key takeaways from the 2016 Forum was the need to broaden and deepen our cross-movement work to address rising fascisms, fundamentalisms, corporate greed and climate change.
With this in mind, we have been working with multiple allies to grow these seeds of resistance:
- Our Seed Initiatives, has helped 20 ideas that emerged at the Forum to grow into concrete actions
- The video “Defending people and planet” and guide “Weaving resistance through action” put courageous WHRDs in the spotlight and present concrete strategies they use to confront corporate power.
- With our animations about the State of Our Feminist Movements and Climate and Environmental Justice, movements now have creative tools to support their advocacy work.
- The compiling artistic expressions of our #MovementsMatter series continues to inspire stronger and more creative organizing around the world.
- Movements can also benefit from new methodologies on Visioning Feminist Futures (Coming up soon!)
And through our next strategic plan and Forum process, we are committed to keep developing ideas and deepen the learnings ignited at the 2016 Forum.
What happens now?
The world is a much different place than it was a year ago, and it will continue to change.
The next AWID Forum will take place in the Asia Pacific region (exact location and dates to be announced in 2018).
We look forward to you joining us!
The next AWID Forum will take place in the Asia Pacific region (exact location and dates to be announced in 2018).
We look forward to you joining us!
About the AWID Forum
AWID Forums started in 1983, in Washington DC. Since then, the event has grown to become many things to many peoples: an iterative process of sharpening our analyses, vision and actions; a watershed moment that reinvigorates participants’ feminisms and energizes their organizing; and a political home for women human rights defenders to find sanctuary and solidarity.
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Annual Report 2010
Our 2010 Annual Report highlights the major accomplishments of each of our strategic initiatives during the year.
Along with activity highlights, we include a brief analysis of the impact of our initiatives as well as reflections from our members and partners that further illustrate the relevance of AWID’s work and its connection to broader women’s rights movements.
This interactive document is complete with links to our websites and recent publications with in-depth information on the issues we address in the report.
Mai Ghoussoub
Margo Okazawa-Rey
Biography
Margo Okazawa-Rey is an activist-educator and transnational feminist working on issues of militarism for nearly 30 years. She is a founder member of the International Women’s Network against Militarism and Women for Genuine Security, the US group of the Network. She has long-standing activist commitments with Du Re Bang/My Sisters Place in South Korea and Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling in Palestine. She also serves on the International Board of PeaceWomen Across the Globe in Bern, Switzerland and is President of the Board of Directors of Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID). Her foundational activist/life principle is that love is a radical act. She is also known as DJ MOR Love and Joy.
Position
President
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Noxolo Nogwaza
Eni Lestari
Biography
Eni Lestari is an Indonesian domestic worker in Hong Kong and a migrant rights activist. After escaping her abusive employer, she transformed herself from a victim into an organizer for domestic workers in particular, and migrant workers in general. In 2000, she founded the Association of Indonesian Migrant Workers (ATKI-Hong Kong) which later expanded to Macau, Taiwan, and Indonesia. She was the coordinator and the one of the spokesperson of the Asia Migrants Coordinating Body (AMCB) - an alliance of grassroots migrants organisations in Hong Kong coming from Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Nepal and Sri Lanka. She is also the current chairperson of International Migrants Alliance, the first-ever global alliance of grassroots migrants, immigrants, refugees, and other displaced people.
She has held important positions in various organizations including and current Regional Council member of Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD), former Board Member of Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW), spokesperson for Network of Indonesian Migrant Workers (JBMI), advisor for ATKI-Hong Kong and Macau as well as the Association of Returned Migrants and Families in Indonesia (KABAR BUMI). She has been an active resource person in forums organized by academics, interfaith groups, civil societies, trade unions and many others at national, regional, and international arenas.
She has actively participated in United Nations assemblies/conferences on development and migrants’ rights and was chosen as a speaker at the opening of the UN General Assembly on Large Movement of Migrants and Refugees in 2016 in New York City, USA. She received nominations and awards such as Inspirational Women by BBC 100 Women, Public Hero Award by RCTI, Indonesian Club Award, and Non-Profit Leader of Women of Influence by American Chamber Hong Kong, and Changemaker of Cathay Pacific.
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Amanda Castro
