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.
While we dream of a feminist world, there are those who are already building and living it. These are our Feminist Realities!
What are Feminist Realities?
Feminist Realities are the living, breathing examples of the just world we are co-creating. They exist now, in the many ways we live, struggle and build our lives.
Feminist Realities go beyond resisting oppressive systems to show us what a world without domination, exploitation and supremacy look like.
These are the narratives we want to unearth, share and amplify throughout this Feminist Realities journey.
Transforming Visions into Lived Experiences
Through this initiative, we:
Create and amplify alternatives: We co-create art and creative expressions that center and celebrate the hope, optimism, healing and radical imagination that feminist realities inspire.
Build knowledge: We document, demonstrate & disseminate methodologies that will help identify the feminist realities in our diverse communities.
Advance feminist agendas: We expand and deepen our collective thinking and organizing to advance just solutions and systems that embody feminist values and visions.
Mobilize solidarity actions: We engage feminist, women’s rights and gender justice movements and allies in sharing, exchanging and jointly creating feminist realities, narratives and proposals at the 14th AWID International Forum.
The AWID International Forum
As much as we emphasize the process leading up to, and beyond, the four-day Forum, the event itself is an important part of where the magic happens, thanks to the unique energy and opportunity that comes with bringing people together.
We expect the next Forum to:
Build the power of Feminist Realities, by naming, celebrating, amplifying and contributing to build momentum around experiences and propositions that shine light on what is possible and feed our collective imaginations
Replenish wells of hope and energy as much needed fuel for rights and justice activism and resilience
Strengthen connectivity, reciprocity and solidarity across the diversity of feminist movements and with other rights and justice-oriented movements
The artwork is a photography and illustration collaboration between Siphumeze and Katia during lockdown. The work looks at black queer sex and plesure narratives, bondage, safe sex, toys, mental health and sex and many more. It was created to accompany the Anthology Touch.
Over the past few years, a troubling new trend at the international human rights level is being observed, where discourses on ‘protecting the family’ are being employed to defend violations committed against family members, to bolster and justify impunity, and to restrict equal rights within and to family life.
The campaign to "Protect the Family" is driven by ultra-conservative efforts to impose "traditional" and patriarchal interpretations of the family, and to move rights out of the hands of family members and into the institution of ‘the family’.
“Protection of the Family” efforts stem from:
rising traditionalism,
rising cultural, social and religious conservatism and
sentiment hostile to women’s human rights, sexual rights, child rights and the rights of persons with non-normative gender identities and sexual orientations.
Since 2014, a group of states have been operating as a bloc in human rights spaces under the name “Group of Friends of the Family”, and resolutions on “Protection of the Family” have been successfully passed every year since 2014.
This agenda has spread beyond the Human Rights Council. We have seen regressive language on “the family” being introduced at the Commission on the Status of Women, and attempts made to introduce it in negotiations on the Sustainable Development Goals.
Our Approach
AWID works with partners and allies to jointly resist “Protection of the Family” and other regressive agendas, and to uphold the universality of human rights.
In response to the increased influence of regressive actors in human rights spaces, AWID joined allies to form the Observatory on the Universality of Rights (OURs). OURs is a collaborative project that monitors, analyzes, and shares information on anti-rights initiatives like “Protection of the Family”.
Rights at Risk, the first OURs report, charts a map of the actors making up the global anti-rights lobby, identifies their key discourses and strategies, and the effect they are having on our human rights.
The report outlines “Protection of the Family” as an agenda that has fostered collaboration across a broad range of regressive actors at the UN. It describes it as: “a strategic framework that houses “multiple patriarchal and anti-rights positions, where the framework, in turn, aims to justify and institutionalize these positions.”
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لبناء وقائع نسوية ترتكز على الأدلة عن كيف يتحرك المال ولمن يصل
¡Sigue el trabajo de la cooperativa en Facebook e Instagram, comparte sus campañas y mantente al tanto de sus acciones y eventos de recaudación de fondos!
Pensamos que la economía, el mercado, el sistema financiero y las premisas sobre las que se basan son todas áreas fundamentales para la lucha feminista.
Por eso, nuestra visión de una economía justa va más allá de promover los derechos y el empoderamiento de las mujeres en una economía de mercado, sino que busca evaluar el rol que juegan las opresiones de género en dar forma al modelo económico y ver como podemos transformarlo para garantizar la justicia de género y económica.
El proceso
No estamos comenzando de cero ni estamos solas en nuestro intento de presentar propuestas feministas para una economía justa. Muchas de nuestras propuestas ya han sido presentadas o existen en la práctica de las diversas comunidades que confrontan y desafían a los sistemas económicos dominantes basados en el mercado y el crecimiento.
También somos concientes de las limitaciones que algunas alternativas presentan para abordar las injusticias del actual sistema capitalista a escala global. No siempre las propuestas a nivel micro son la respuesta a los problemas macro, si bien representan espacios importantes de resistencia y construcción de movimientos.
Metas
Sin embargo, las alternativas feministas para una economía justa son fundamentales para socavar el sistema y para aprender a generar cambios transformadores y sistémicos. No podemos presumir de ofrecer un relato exhaustivo ni completo acerca de cómo crear un modelo económico feminista justo, o varios modelos de esa clase. Lo que sí podemos hacer es recoger elementos de diálogos con otros movimientos (sindicales, ambientales, rurales y de campesinxs) para formular propuestas que nos permitan acercanos a esa visión.
¿Qué queremos cambiar?
El modelo neoliberal que dirige la economía global ha demostrado una y otra vez su incapacidad para hacer frente a las causas estructurales de la pobreza, las desigualdades y la exclusión. Lo que en realidad ha hecho el neoliberalismo ha sido contribuir a crear y exacerbar esas injusticias.
En estas últimas tres décadas, las políticas dominantes para el desarrollo se han caracterizado por la globalización, liberalización, privatizaciones, financialización y ayudas condicionadas, y han destrozado los medios de vida de la población. El recorrido de estas políticas también ha estado marcado por la profundización de desigualdades, las injusticias con marca de género y la destrucción ambiental que el mundo ya no puede continuar soportando.
Hay quienes no dudan en sostener que el crecimiento económico, que debe ser facilitado dando plena libertad a las grandes corporaciones y empresas, puede generar y sostener una una marea alta que (con el tiempo) levante todos los barcos.
Sin embargo, la noción de desarrollo que ha prevalecido durante las últimas décadas, construida sobre la premisa de un crecimiento económico ilimitado, está atravesando una crisis ideológica.
El mito del crecimiento económico como panacea para todos nuestros problemas está perdiendo cada vez más prestigio.
تتواجد الحركات النسوية، حركات حقوق النساء، حركات العدالة الجندرية، حركات مجتمع الميم - عين وحلفاءها/ يفاتها في مفترق شديد الأهمية وتواجه هجمات عصيبة على حقوق وحريات حصلت عليها. فتصاعد الاستبداد في الأعوام الأخيرة، وكذلك القمع العنيف للمجتمع المدني وتجريم النساء والأشخاص المتنوعين/ات جندرياً المدافعين عن حقوق الإنسان، تصاعد الحروب والأزمات في الكثير من أنحاء العالم، استمرار الظلم الاقتصادي والتقاطع بين الصحة، البيئة والأزمة المناخية.
La recherche de moyens alternatifs de production alimentaire fondés sur la durabilité environnementale gagne du terrain dans toutes les régions du monde. Cette quête mondiale présente une caractéristique centrale : la nécessité de mobiliser les populations rurales, en particulier les femmes, tenant compte de leurs priorités et de leurs connaissances locales par le truchement de l’agroécologie.
Définition
L’agroécologie est une façon de pratiquer l'agriculture ou de faire appel aux technologies qui ne nuit pas à l'environnement. Cette approche propose de rompre avec le modèle de développement rural hégémonique reposant sur les grandes exploitations et la monoculture qui profitent essentiellement aux entreprises agricoles et renforcent l'exclusion sociale.
Dans le contexte de l'agriculture familiale, l'agroécologie représente une forme de résistance au modèle de développement actuel et aux problèmes sociaux, culturels, environnementaux et économiques que ce modèle implique. L’agroécologie se pose en alternative face au manque d'autonomie financière des agriculteur-trice-s et symbolise une résistance face au modèle d'agroentreprises actuel.
Perspective féministe
Il se pourrait que les efforts uniquement axés sur l'agroécologie ne suffisent pas à résoudre tous les problèmes de la marginalisation et de l'invisibilité des femmes. Il est alors crucial d’adopter une perspective féministe afin d'analyser les normes associées à la notion de famille telle qu'actuellement constituée en tant qu'institution parfaite, ainsi que les normes relatives à la condition de subordination des femmes.
Plus simplement, il importe d'inclure une réflexion sur les rôles de genre socialement construits pour faire avancer le potentiel émancipateur de l'agroécologie dans ce débat.
Les Etats membres et les défenseur-e-s et organisations des droits des femmes se réuniront au siège des Nations Unies à New York du 13 au 24 mars pour la 61ème édtion de la Commission de la condition de la femme, afin d’aborder le thème de l’« autonomisation économique des femmes » dans le cadre de l'objectif 5 pour le développement durable.
Alors que nous avons hâte de retrouver quelques un-e-s d'entre vous à New-York, nous souhaitons aussi impliquer celles et ceux qui ne peuvent pas être présent-e-s à la CSW et être votre porte-voix dans les espaces pertinents.
Poursuivez votre lecture pour savoir comment participer à la CSW aux côtés de l’AWID, que vous soyez sur place ou non.
Participez à une prise de contrôle artistique !
C'es un plaisir pour nous que Nayani Thiyagarajah, membre de l’AWID, assistera à la CSW cette année et qu’elle sera en charge du compte Instagram de l’AWID.
Là-bas, elle sera disponible pour rencontrer d’autres membres qui pourront éventuellement figurer sur notre Instagram. Elle explorera par ailleurs les possibilités d’inclure certain-e-s membres de l’AWID dans un court-métrage sur le thème ‘le privé est politique’, qui retracera l’histoire de la participation de Nayani à la CSW de cette année.
Nayani Thiyagarajah
Qui est Nayani?
Nayani Thiyagarajah est une directrice, productrice et écrivaine qui se consacre à porter des histoires à l’écran. Fille de la diaspora tamoule, elle appelle désormais Toronto sa ville. Pendant plus de 10 ans, Nayani a travaillé dans l’industrie des arts et de la culture. Son premier long-métrage documentaire indépendant, Shadeism: Digging Deeper (2015), fut présenté en première au Festival international du film de Zanzibar, où il obtint le Prix spécial du jury. Avec son partenaire de production Camaro West, Nayani a récemment lancé [RE]FRAME, une compagnie de production basée à Atlanta et à Toronto qui s’attache à reformuler les récits concernant les noir-e-s, les autochtones et d’autres personnes de couleur à travers des narrations portées à l’écran.
Plus sérieusement, il convient de mentionner que Nayani a un rire étrange, qu’elle est assez maladroite et qu’elle a toujours la tête dans les nuages. Pour elle, c’est une chance incroyable d’inventer des histoires pour l’écran et de s’amuser à faire croire, et de pouvoir en vivre. Elle croit en l’amour par-dessus tout.
Vous avez envie de rencontrer Nayani et d’être pris-e en compte pour figurer dans son film ?
Envoyez un e-mail à membership@awid.org en précisant dans la ligne d’objet « CSW: Prise de contrôle artistique »
Avant le 13 mars 2017
Merci d’inclure votre nom complet et votre lieu de résidence.
Vous ne pouvez pas assister à la CSW ? Exprimez-le !
Si vous êtes dans l’incapacité d’assister à la CSW61 en raison d’une interdiction de voyager, qu’elle ait été imposée par l’administration Trump ou par votre propre gouvernement, n’hésitez pas à nous faire part de votre histoire.
Envoyez-nous les messages que vous voulez voir diffusés dans les espaces des Nations Unies autour du financement, de l’impact du rétablissement de la règle du bâillon mondiale (Global Gag Rule) et de la nécessité de rejeter les fondamentalismes religieux. Vous pouvez adresser vos messages sous les formats suivants :
vidéo : elle ne devra pas durer plus de deux minutes et devra être envoyée via un partage de fichier en ligne (par exemple dropbox, google drive)
audio : il ne durera pas plus de deux minutes et sera envoyé via un partage de fichier en ligne (par exemple dropbox, google drive)
image : vous pouvez partager une photo ou une affiche de votre message
texte : il ne pourra pas faire plus de 200 mots et devra être intégré dans le corps d’un e-mail ou dans un document word
Envoyez-nous votre message !
Envoyez un e-mail à membership@awid.org, en précisant en ligne d’objet « CSW: Exprimez-le ! »
Avant le 15 mars 2017
Rencontrez d’autres membres à la CSW61
Les membres de l’AWID nous disent combien les rencontres qui se font entre membres à la CSW sont précieuses. Dans un lieu de plaidoyer tellement immense, il est utile de rencontrer et d’échanger avec les autres, y compris avec des activistes travaillant sur des questions semblables, ou venant du même pays ou de la même région. Nous reconnaissons que les rencontres sont fondamentales dans la construction des mouvements.
Vous souhaitez être mis-e-s en contact avec d’autres membres à la CSW61 ?
Envoyez un e-mail à membership@awid.org, en précisant en ligne d’objet « CSW: Membres de l’AWID »
NOTE : Veuillez nous transmettre vos coordonnées complètes (nom, pays) et nous indiquer si vous nous autorisez à communiquer votre adresse mail aux autres membres qui souhaiteraient entrer en contact à la CSW.
Prenez une photo !
Si vous participez à la CSW, partagez-nous ce que vous y voyez ! Montrez-le nous en capturant un instant qui reflète l'energie de l'espace de la CSW, que ce soit lors d'une conférence ou en dehors. Nous avons l'intention de publier vos images usr nos réseaux sociaux et de les partager sur notre site.
Vous pouvez nous envoyer :
des photographies en couleur ou en noir & blanc
avec leur titre (si vous souhaitez)
et une légende (pas plus de 100 mots) qui raconter l'histoire de votre photo.
Veuillez aussi inclure :
votre nom complet et votre pays d'origine
faites-nous aussi savoir si vous nous autorisez à partager tout ou partie de ces informations
Partagez vos images !
Envoyez un e-mail à membership@awid.org en précisant en ligne d’objet « CSW: Prenez une photo ! »
Pendant toute la CSW ou rapidement après, jusqu'au jeudi 28 mars 2017.
على من يجب تعبئة الاستطلاع؟
المجموعات، المنظمات والحركات التي تعمل خصوصاً وبالأساس على حقوق النساء، حقوق الفتيات، العدالة الجندرية، حقوق مجتمعات الميم - عين وحلفائها/يفاتها في جميع المناطق وعلى جميع المستويات، إن كانت مجموعات جديدة أو قديمة.
Te presentamos el Sindicato Red de Solidaridad, un sindicato de servicios y salud liderado en su mayoría por mujeres. Surgiendo como respuesta a la creciente precariedad, salarios insuficientes y entornos laborales hostiles que enfrentan diariamente lxs trabajadorxs en Georgia, el Sindicato Red de Solidaridad lucha por lugares y condiciones de trabajo dignos.
¿Su objetivo? Crear un movimiento obrero democrático nacional. Para hacerlo, se ha asociado con otros sindicatos locales y regionales y ha creado lentamente una red de sindicatos, empoderando por el camino a cada vez más trabajadoras para que se conviertan en líderes sindicales.
Su enfoque político es holístico. Para el Sindicato Red de Solidaridad, los temas de derechos laborales están directamente conectados con agendas y reformas políticas y económicas nacionales más amplias. Por eso están presionando por la justicia fiscal, los derechos de las mujeres y personas LGBTQIA+, y luchando contra el desmantelamiento del estado de bienestar georgiano.
Solidarity Network también forma parte de Huelga Social Transnacional (Transnational Social Strike, TSS), una plataforma política e infraestructura inspirada en la organización de migrantes, mujeres y trabajadores esenciales que trabaja para construir conexiones entre los movimientos laborales a través de las fronteras y fomentar la solidaridad global.
Seven feminist policy recommendations to curb illicit financial flows
The growing dominance of international financial markets and institutions in defining global economic policies has resulted in the capture of people’s power in the interest of global elites and big corporations.
Our policy brief on Illicit Financial Flows explores their disproportional gender impact and unveils the current legal and political frameworks that allow multinational corporations to benefit from tax abuse to the detriment of people and planet.
The brief concludes with these seven feminist policy recommendations to demand transparency and corporate accountability in order to curb illicit financial flows.
Our recommendations for advocacy
Illicit financial flows are gaining unprecedented attention: whether in development negotiations, like those leading to Agenda 2030 and the Addis Ababa Financing for Development Conference in 2015; or making headlines in mainstream media with the release of leaked documents on offshore finance known as the ‘Panama Papers’. In another example, the Ecuadorean people voted to bar politicians and civil servants from having assets, companies or capital in tax havens, in a referendum in February 2017. The Ecuadorian government is now a leading voice within the group of G77, in the United Nations, to create a UN global tax body to end tax havens.
This public attention potentially builds momentum for feminists, social movements and tax justice advocates to pressure for the transformation of the global financial system, which entrenches global inequalities, including gendered inequalities.
We offer below a set of seven policy asks as a contribution to growing advocacy efforts from social justice, feminist, women’s rights and gender equality actors:
1. Address IFFs as a violation of human rights and women’s rights:
Illicit financial flows are hindering the fulfillment of the obligation of States to mobilise the maximum available resources for the realisation of human rights, including long agreed commitments on women’s rights and gender equality.
Strengthening corporate accountability is a possibility on the table at the UN Human Rights Council. An open-ended intergovernmental working group is in place to elaborate an international legally binding instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises. This process has the potential to address corporate tax evasion as a violation of human rights, including women’s rights, and should be greater supported by countries in the global North and South.
2. Ensure multinational corporations pay their share of taxes:
Develop international mechanisms that curb abusive tax practices and prevent corporate tax exemptions. UN member states should initiate negotiations to draft a UN convention to combat abusive tax practices. The convention should adopt a consolidation and apportionment system for taxing global corporate profits.
Revise specifically national regulations in wealthy countries that demand MNCs pay taxes only in the resident country, rather than in the countries of economic activity. This practice hinders developing countries the most, as they increasingly lose taxable base to low and zero tax jurisdictions. Proposals like the Unitary Taxation approach should be considered in this regard.
3. Support the establishment of a United Nations intergovernmental tax body:
A UN tax body with equal voting rights and universal membership should have the power to review national, regional and global tax policy and ensure states comply with long agreed commitments on human rights, including women’s rights and gender equality.
4. Promote transparency and gender-sensitive data gathering:
Greater efforts must be made at the global level to refine comparable data on tax abuse, for example with gender disaggregated data that shows the gender biases of certain tax systems.
Countries must ensure a framework for automatic information exchange, which guarantees public and global access to key data that affects the resources available for the realization of human rights.
Implement country-by-country reporting obligations for multinational corporations to publicly disclose, as part of annual reports, profits made and taxes paid for each country in which they operate.
Among other financial information, there must be greater cooperation from governments to share their national public registries that disclose beneficial owners of companies, trusts, foundations and similar legal structures.
5. Promote tax justice through progressive fiscal policies at the national level:
Promote tax justice through progressive fiscal policies. This requires increasing the weight of direct taxes on income capital and highly profitable sectors of society, while reducing and removing the burden on women and poor people. Poor segments of society, of which women are overrepresented, should not end up paying more taxes, in relation to their income, than the richest segments that often benefit from government tax subsidies, tax holidays and reductions.
Governments must critically review the harmful trade and investment agreements that grant tax incentives and exemptions that perpetuate inequality and gender biases.
6. Ensure participation of women’s rights organisations, social movements and progressive civil society broadly:
Economic and fiscal policy decisions often lack a gender sensitive perspective. Engagement between the ministries of Gender and Finance, and both with civil society and women human rights defenders, is key to better understand the impact that revenue decisions are having on women’s rights and gender equality.
An enabling environment should be in place to protect women human rights defenders and others (including whistle-blowers, tax justice activists) that expose tax abuse and report corruption.
7. Stop the impunity of criminal activities associated with IFFs and ensure accountability:
Establish a global coordinated mechanism across national tax authorities, human rights and gender equality machineries, and intelligence units, to ensure criminal activities associated with IFFs do not continue with impunity.
Strengthen national and global justice systems to be able to hold individuals and entities to account for funding criminal activities through IFFs.
Liberated Land & Territories:
A Pan-African Conversation
Luam Kidane, Thousand Currents
Mariama Sonko, Nous Sommes la Solution
Yannia Sofia Garzon Valencia, VigiaAfro
Nomsa Sizani, Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement SA
Feminist solidarity across borders:
Palestine, Myanmar and beyond
Nino Ugrekhelidze, AWID
Sandie Hanna, With and For Girls Fund
Areen Hawari, Mada alCarmel Arab Research Center
Tin Tin Nyo, Burmese Women’s Union
Nandar, Purple Feminists Group
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.
Faye is a passionate Pan-African feminist, active in movements for women's rights, racial justice, migrant and labor rights, and environmental justice. Her activism builds on the legacy of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa and the aftermath of the apartheid era in Zimbabwe.
In 2019, Faye joined AWID as the Director of Finance, Operations and Development, and strived to ensure that AWID upholds the feminist principles and values in all of its operations. She brings over 20 years of experience in feminist leadership, strategy, and all aspects of finance and organizational development.
Faye is a committed Board Member of UAF-Africa and other women's rights organizations. She previously held a Head of Finance and Operations roles at Paediatric Adolescent Treatment for Africa and JASS - Just Associates Inc. in Southern Africa. She also held Directorship roles for International Computer Driving Licence (ICDL) in Central and Southern Africa. She holds a Bcompt in Accounting Science from University of South Africa and is a member of the Southern African Institute for Business Accountants.
During her 38-year career, Debbie Stothard, has worked with diverse communities and activists to engage states, IGOs and other stakeholders throughout Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas on human rights and justice. Her work is focused on the thematic priorities of business and human rights, atrocity prevention, and women’s leadership. Accordingly, she has either facilitated or been a resource person at nearly 300 training events in the past 15 years. Most of these were grassroots-oriented workshops delivered in the field, focused on human rights advocacy, economic literacy and business and human rights, and transitional justice and atrocity prevention. Her work in transitional justice and atrocity prevention has mainly focused on Burma/Myanmar, however she has provided advice on responses to other country situations around the world.
During 1981 – 1996, Debbie worked as a crime reporter, student organizer, policy analyst, academic, government advisor and food caterer in Malaysia and Australia while volunteering for human rights causes. In 1996, she founded ALTSEAN-Burma which spearheaded a range of innovative and empowering human rights programs. This includes ALTSEAN’s ongoing intensive leadership program for diverse young women from Burma, which in the past 22 years, has helped strengthen and expand women’s leadership in conflict-affected zones. She served as a member of the Board of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) for 9 years as Deputy Secretary-General (2010-2013) and Secretary-General (2013 – 2019) during which she promoted the mission and profile of FIDH at approximately 100 meetings and conferences per year.
Rachel is a financial professional with over two decades of experience. She has overseen financial affairs and projects for private and public entities, non-profits, and international non-governmental organizations. A Chartered Accountant with a Global Master’s in Business Administration, she is also a member of the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants. In her spare time, Rachel designs typography art, enjoys traveling and spending time with family and friends over a bottle of wine.
The AWID international Forum is a gathering of 2,000 women’s rights leaders and activists from around the world. The AWID Forum is the largest recurring event of its kind, and every Forum takes place in a different country in the global South.
The AWID International Forum is both a global community event and a space of radical personal transformation. A one-of-a-kind convening, the Forum brings together feminist, women’s rights, gender justice, LBTQI+ and allied movements, in all our diversity and humanity, to connect, heal and thrive.
When people come together on a global scale, as individuals and movements, we generate a sweeping force.
Join us in Bangkok, Thailand and online in December 2024.
