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

Juli Dugdale

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Category
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
Region
Pacific
Date of death / disappearance
Cause of death / disappearance

Natural

Juli Dugdale was an Australian feminist who practiced intergenerational leadership rooted in principles of feminism, inclusion and equality. She was a leader, peer and mentor for many women and especially young women around the world. 

Juli was a dedicated staff member, volunteer and fervent advocate for young women’s leadership with the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) movement for over 30 years.

She offered a strong link between the Australian movement and the World YWCA Office. Her trust in the leadership capacity of young women led to a multi-year partnership with the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the creation of the Rise Up manual, a global guide for young women’s transformative leadership, launched in 2018.

Juli passed away in Geneva on 12 August 2019.

Tributes:

“For those who got to work with Juli, it was a privilege. For those who didn’t, be assured that her legacy continues in the work we do every day and in the mission of the YWCA movement.” - YWCA Australia

“Juli Dugdale will forever hold a deep place in many people's hearts in the YWCA movement, especially here in Aotearoa and across the Pacific. Juli had a special relationship with the Pacific and was an incredible supporter of the young women there. She was humble, gracious, loving, caring, dedicated, passionate and had a generous heart. She embodied the YWCA's vision of 'transformative leadership' with extraordinary vision and foresight, and helped empower generations of young women leaders around the world.” - YWCA New Zealand

Will the AWID Forum still be in Taipei in light of the COVID-19?

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AWID is closely monitoring the global COVID 19 situation and for now anticipates continuing with the Forum as planned.

If at any moment the situation demands  something different, we  will let you know right away.

The 14th AWID International Forum is scheduled to take place 20-23 September 2021 in Taipei,.

More information

Lorena Borjas

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

Disease

Lorena Borjas, a trans Latina woman and activist, lived and worked in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens, New York City. In those streets, she looked after her community for years, advocating for trans and immigrant rights, supporting survivors of human trafficking and abuse, campaigning for sex workers’ rights and those of people living with HIV and AIDS.

Lorena was strong and tireless in her fight to support, defend, and have the back of those most marginalized and discriminated by transphobia, misogyny and racism. 

“She pushed us to shine authentically, to become a scream of subversion that says, ‘I am here, and I deserve happiness, too.’” - Cecilia Gentili, a trans activist and Lorena’s friend

Having faced numerous traumas and hardships herself, as a trans immigrant woman and victim of human trafficking, Lorena pulled knowledge and emotional memory from the well of her experiences in order to help build and strengthen the community she was part of and which was part of her. Some of the ways she did this was to organize and mobilize support ranging from providing condoms and connecting trans women to different services, to setting up an HIV testing clinic in her own home. 

"She was such a beautiful soul who helped others when her journey was difficult and painful as an immigrant, as a trans immigrant. She believed the trans community needed love, acceptance, and compassion, and she gave it all.” - Luchia Dragosh, QPTV Supervising producer of a documentary about Lorena 

In more than 25 years of activism, she also founded the Lorena Borjas Community Fund together with Chase Strangio (lawyer and trans rights activist). The Fund helps the many different members of her community (and especially trans persons) dealing with immigration challenges to avoid the cycle of arrest-jail-deportation. 

Lorena passed away in March 2020 of complications from COVID-19. 

Her enormous and beautiful legacy will be taken forward through the streets of Queens by the network and community she co-created. 

“We will pick up her work where she left it, work that is essential to the well-being of “mis pajaras” as she called the trans girls of Queens under her wing.” - Cecilia Gentili 

Tributes: 

"Lorena brought light to us when we were living through a very dark time here in New York. She brought us light when we were dealing with the crack epidemic, when we were dealing with the AIDS crisis, dealing with changes in immigration policies." - Cristina Herrera, founder and CEO of Translatina Network and Lorena’s friend

"Lorena has done more than anyone else I know to shine a light on the epidemic of trafficking in transgender communities and to help other trans women escape exploitation."  - Lynly Egyes (represented Borjas on behalf of the Transgender Law Center)

Watch a documentary about Lorena Borjas 

Read a postscript in The New Yorker about Lorena Borjas 

Read an opinion piece in the New York Times by Cecilia Gentilin

Events

Resisting Homophobia in Ghana: a Queer & Feminist Strategy

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1 of 3 trans and travesti people in Argentina live in a poor household

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...WHO TAKES CARE OF THEM?

Women’s Rights & Gender Equality in focus on TheGuardian.com

The in-focus section features the pressing issues affecting women, girls and transgender people around the world, and shines a spotlight on the critical work being carried out by women's rights movements. 

AWID and Mama Cash are advisory partners who offer ideas to the Guardian editorial team and help link the Guardian team with diverse women’s rights advocates, organizations and movements around the world.

With the Guardian’s global reach of over 82 million unique browsers a month and its position of influence with policy makers, AWID and Mama Cash see this partnership as an important opportunity to:

  • bring a rights based analysis to a broad and powerful audience
  • increase the visibility of diverse women’s rights organizing and make the case for the key role they play in advancing women’s rights
  • raise the visibility of women human rights defenders at risk
  • influence key global development policy processes and debates and support more diverse voices to frame debates and set priorities about women’s, girls and transgender people’s rights and the changes that are needed at global, regional and national levels.

If you would like to share suggestions for women’s rights issues, strategies, process or events that you would like to see covered by the in-focus section, you can pitch your ideas here. All suggestions collected through this online form will be shared directly with the Guardian editorial team.The Guardian is solely responsible for all journalistic output and all editorial content is strictly independent.

If you have questions about this project, email: contact@awid.org and/or hello@mamacash.org. 

View Guardian Hub

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Lines of work:

FOR

Defending LGBTQI Rights

Student, Writer, Leader, Advocate. Each of the four women honored below had their own way of activism but what they had in common is that they all promoted and defended Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer and Intersex rights. Join us in remembering and honoring these Women Human Rights Defenders, their work and legacy by sharing the memes below and tweeting by using the hashtags #WHRDTribute and #16Days. 

Please click on each image below to see a larger version and download as a file

 

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Photo of people sitting on red chairs in a hall

5. Conduct interviews

Interviews produce in-depth information that you cannot easily obtain from surveys. While surveys focuses mainly on quantifiable data and closed questions, interviews allow for expert opinions from activists and donors, and open-ended questions which can provide context to survey data results.

In this section

General tips

1. Before conducting your interviews

Send the interviewees a concept note with your objectives for the interview and for your overall research, as well as a list of questions.

This allows them to prepare answers for more complicated questions and look up information that they may not have immediately on hand.

2. During the interviews

  • You can conduct interviews while your survey is running, in order to save time.
  • Try to keep your interviews as consistent as possible in order to facilitate systematic analysis of results. This means asking the same questions. Coding identical responses to each question will allow you to uncover hidden trends.
  • The interviews can also be used to flesh out some of the survey findings

Do not base your questions on assumptions about your interviewees’ knowledge.
Instead, first clarify what they know – this will reveal information as well.

  • DON’T: “Given the current funding trends in Switzerland, do you know of any opportunities for collaboration? This question assumes that the interviewee knows current funding trends and that their understanding of funding trends matches yours.
  • DO: First ask “What is your understanding of current funding trends in Switzerland?”, followed by “Do you know of any opportunities for collaboration?” This will reveal what their understanding is, giving you even more information than the first question.

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Specialized interviews

1. Donor interviews

Interviews with donors will allow you to build deeper relationships with them, which will be useful when you conduct post-research advocacy. They will also provide you with deeper insight into funders’ decision-making processes.

Suggested topics of focus for donor interviews:

  • What are their funding priorities? Why and how did they select those priorities? For example, why do they choose project-funding over core support or vice versa?
  • What are annual amounts allocated to the advancement of women’s human rights? This will strengthen overall reliability of data collected.
  • Have they noticed any funding trends, and what do they believe are the origins and politics behind these trends?
  • What is their theory of social change and how does that impact their relationships with women’s rights organizations?
View samples of donor interviews

2. Women’s rights organizations and activists interviews

Interviews with women’s rights organizations and activists will provide you with insight into their on-the-ground realities. Again, these interviews will allow you to build deeper relationships that can be incorporated into your advocacy, particularly to encourage collaboration between donors and activists.

Suggested topics of focus for women’s rights organizations and activist interviews:

  • Long-term funding priority trends noted by women’s organizations and their impact.
  • Successful examples of feminist and collaborative resource mobilization strategies that build strong and complementary movements.
  • “Making the case” for why it is important to support women’s organizations and organizing.
  • How different actors understand the social change process and their role in advancing/achieving gender equality and women’s rights.
View samples of women’s organizations and activists interviews

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Preliminary findings

Through the course of your WITM research, we recommend analyzing your preliminary findings. Presenting your preliminary findings opens up opportunities to conduct more interviews and get feedback on your research process and initial results. This feedback can be incorporated into your final research.

AWID conducts “WITM convenings” to share preliminary results of survey data and interviews. These gatherings allow participants (activists, women’s rights organizations, and donors) to debate and discuss the results, clarifying the context, creating more ownership amongst members of the movement, and providing more input for final research.

For example, the Resource Mobilization Hub for Indigenous Women’s Rights at the World Summit on Indigenous Philanthropy was used as a space to debut preliminary results.

See the presentation given at the RMH

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Previous step

4. Collect and analyze your data

Next step

6. Conduct desk research

Estimated time:

• 1.5 - 3 months

People needed:

• 1 or more research person(s)

Resources needed:

• List of donors and women’s rights organizations and activists to interview
• Prepared interview questions
• Concept Note (You can use the research framing you created in the “Frame your research” section)

Resources available:

• AWID Sample Interview Questions: Donors
• AWID Sample Interview Questions: Activists & Women’s Rights Organizations

Previous step

4. Collect and analyze your data

Next step

6. Conduct desk research

Ready to Go? Worksheet

Download the toolkit in PDF

Snippet FEA We are living in a world right (EN)

Even in times of climate crisis, governments continue to encourage large-scale agriculture industries to expand. These activities poison the land, threaten biodiversity, and destroy local food production and livelihoods. Meanwhile, while women produce the majority of our food in the world, they own almost none of the land.

What if we perceived land and Nature not as private property to exploit, but as a whole to live in, learn from, and harmoniously coexist with? What if we repaired our relationships with the land and embraced more sustainable alternatives that nurture both the planet and its communities?

Nous Sommes la Solution (We Are the Solution, NSS) is one of many women-led movements striving to do this. This is their story.

Feminist Alternatives Project

As feminists many of us feel frustrated as we lurch from one political ‘moment’ to another; our work constrained by the parameters of organisational mandates, funding trends or political agendas, our time spent arguing over the need for gender analysis rather than building alliances for change.

The Gender & Development Network’s project on Feminist Alternatives provides space to consider what is important, to listen deeply to others and to accept challenges to our assumptions. Transformative progress towards feminist societies requires fundamental change that is context-specific, recognising intersectionality, the multiplicity of feminism, and the pivotal role of women’s collective action.

Rather than attempt to write a single paper, we have therefore produced a collection of thought pieces from academics, activists and practitioners around the world – not to suggest that we have the answers, but rather to encourage and provoke debate with the hope that more articles can be added in the future.

We are delighted to link our collection to AWID’s Feminist Propositions for a Just Economy.

Find out more about the Feminist Alternative project

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The AWID Forum is the world’s largest event that wholeheartedly centers feminist and gender justice movements in all their diversity. It is a transformative space created by and for the movements - where Global South feminists and historically marginalized communities take centerstage, strategize to shift power, and connect with allied movements, funders and policy-makers. And so it is with full and fiery hearts that we share…

The 15th AWID International Forum will take place from December 2-5, 2024 in Bangkok, Thailand!


We hope to gather 2,500 in-person and 3,000 online/hybrid participants. When thousands of feminists come together, we create a sweeping force of solidarity that has the power to change the world! We’re excited, and we know you’re excited too - so stay tuned for more

The Devil is in the Details

Free ebook on Women's rights and Religious fundamentalisms

Religious fundamentalisms have particularly high costs for women and girls

Download ebook

In a global picture of rising religious fundamentalisms, this ebook details the grave human rights violations, and violations of women’s rights in particular, caused by state-sponsored fundamentalism, as well as by fundamentalist non-state actors such as militias, religious community organizations, and individuals.

It is vital to promote intersectional feminist understandings of power and privilege, and to apply these to questions of religion and culture.

Read more on women's rights

How can I fund my participation in the AWID Forum?

If your group or organization receives funding, you might want to discuss with your funder already now if they are able to support your travel and participation to the Forum. Many institutions plan their budgets for next year early in 2023, so better not delay this conversation for next year.