Isabel and Reyna Ayala Nava
Protection of the Family
The Issue
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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The People's Summit
The climate summit by movements, for movements.
📅 November 12 - November 16, 2025
📍 Universidade Federal do Pará, Belém
¿Cuánto cuesta la participación?
Por favor, calcula los costos de viaje a Bangkok, alojamiento y viáticos, visado, cualquier necesidad de accesibilidad y gastos incidentales, además de la tarifa de inscripción que se anunciará próximamente. Los hoteles en la zona de Sukhumvit en Bangkok tienen un rango de precios de USD$50 a $200 por noche en ocupación doble.
Lxs afiliadxs de AWID reciben un descuento al registrarse, por lo tanto, si aún no te has sumado a la membresía, te invitamos a considerar unirte y formar parte de nuestra comunidad feminista global.
Esther Mwikali
Esther Mwikali habitait dans le village de Mithini, dans le comté de Murang’a au Kenya. Activiste des droits fonciers, importante et appréciée, elle travaillait sur les abus à l’égard de squatters vivant sur des terres revendiquées par des magnats. Esther a participé à une enquête qui comprenait également des violations de droits fonciers à Makaya par de puissants individus.
Suite à l’absence d’Esther lors d’une réunion de village, une équipe de patrouille est partie à sa recherche. Le 27 août 2019, deux jours après sa disparition, on retrouva son corps dans une ferme proche de sa propriété, montrant des signes de torture. Elle fut sauvagement assassinée.
« Esther était reconnue pour son travail auprès des membres de la communauté, empêchant les évictions de terres revendiquées des magnats. Les activistes du coin n’ont aucun doute sur le lien entre son meurtre et les luttes constantes pour les terres dans la région. C’est un tragique rappel de la fréquence alarmante d’assassinats extrajudiciaires régulièrement menés au Kenya » - Global Wittness Report, juillet 2020
« Nous associons la mort de Mwikali aux luttes pour les terres par ici. Nous demandons au gouvernement de mener une enquête sur ce sujet au plus tôt. » - James Mburu, porte-parole des squatters
« Des mesures devraient être prises à l’égard des individus suspectés d’avoir menacé les squatters, et notamment la famille Mwikali. » - Alice Karanja, National Coalition of Human Rights Defenders (coalition nationale des défenseur·e·s des droits humains)
« L’impact de son travail et sa ténacité demeureront encore en vie pour les prochaines décennies au Kenya. CJGEA console avec les personnes endeuillées et appelle à la justice. » - Center for Justice and Governmental Action (Centre pour la justice et l’action gouvernementale, CJGEA) communiqué de presse, 13 septembre 2019
ours chapter 5
Chapter 5
Anti-Rights Tactics, Strategies, and Impacts
Anti-rights actors adopt a double strategy. As well as launching outright attacks on the multilateral system, anti-rights actors also undermine human rights from within. Anti-rights actors engage with the aim of co-opting processes, entrenching regressive norms, and undermining accountability.
Snippet - COP30 - Resistance Hubs Section Title - ES
Nodos de resistencia por la justicia climática
Rapport Annuel 2013
Notre rapport annuel 2013 retrace les temps forts du travail que nous avons réalisé au cours de l'année, afin de contribuer à l'avancement des droits des femmes et de l'égalité des genres à travers le monde.
Nous présentons ici certains points saillants de notre analyse du contexte mondial, la position que nous adoptons en tant qu’organisation associative féministe mondiale dans ce contexte, les résultats que nous souhaitons atteindre et l’organisation de notre travail dans le but d’atteindre ces résultats.
Et pour les visas ?
Nous avons parfaitement conscience des obstacles pratiques et de la détresse émotionnelle générés par les voyages internationaux, en particulier pour les personnes originaires des pays du Sud mondial. L'AWID collabore avec le TCEB (Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau) afin d'aider les participant·e·s au Forum à obtenir un visa. De plus amples informations concernant l'aide à l'obtention de visas seront disponibles au moment de l'inscription, y compris les coordonnées indiquant où et comment déposer votre demande.
Marge Frantz
Sara Hegazy
Sara Hegazy, a bold Egyptian LGBTQI+ rights activist, lived in a society where the members of her community, their bodies and lives often face lethal prejudice. The roots of Sara’s resistance were in the deconstruction of a dominant, oppressive and patriarchal system, and its anti-rights actors.
"[In Egypt], every person who is not male, Muslim, Sunni, straight, and a supporter of the system, is rejected, repressed, stigmatized, arrested, exiled, or killed. This matter is related to the patriarchal system as a whole, since the state cannot practice its repression against citizens without a pre-existing oppression since childhood." - Sara Hegazy wrote on March 6, 2020
The suppression of Sara’s voice by the Egyptian government reached its violent peak in 2017, when she was arrested for raising a rainbow flag at the Mashrou’ Leila (Lebanese band whose lead vocalist is openly gay) concert in Cairo. What followed were charges of joining an illegal group along with “promoting sexual deviancy and debauchery”.
"It was an act of support and solidarity — not only with the [Mashrou' Leila] vocalist but for everyone who is oppressed...We were proud to hold the flag. We wouldn't have imagined the reaction of society and the Egyptian state. For them, I was a criminal — someone who was seeking to destroy the moral structure of society." - Sara Hegazy
Sara was jailed for three months, where she was tortured and sexually assaulted. In January 2018, after being released on bail, she sought asylum in Canada where she was safe but imprisoned by the memories of the abuse and violence her body and soul had gone through.
"I left this experience after three months with a very intense, serious case of PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder]. Prison killed me. It destroyed me." - Sara Hegazy told NPR
Sara took her own life on 14 June 2020, leaving a handwritten note in Arabic:
“To my siblings – I tried to find redemption and failed, forgive me.”
“To my friends – the experience [journey] was harsh and I am too weak to resist it, forgive me.
“To the world – you were cruel to a great extent, but I forgive.”
Her legacy and courage will be carried forward by those who love her and believe in what she fought for.
Tributes:
“To Sarah: Rest, just rest, spared from this relentless violence, this state-powered lethal patriarchy. In rage, in grief, in exhaustion, we resist.” - Rasha Younes, an LGBT rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. Read the complete text
Mashrou’ Leila’s lead vocalist sings tribute to Sara Hegazy
Historieta: Superheroína feminista refuta mitos anti-derechos
Historieta: Superheroína feminista refuta mitos anti-derechos
En esta historieta de la ilustradora Sophia, se puede seguir a nuestra superheroína feminista que recupera las narrativas capturadas por lxs actores anti-derechos en distintos lugares y salva al mundo.
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📚 Caja de herramientas de educación política
Denunciar la captura corporativa. Comprender las soluciones falsas. Elaborar alternativas. Todo lo que necesitas para ejecutar la campaña “¿De quién es esta COP?”
2018: Supporting feminist movements to thrive and disrupt
This report looks back and celebrates the first year of AWID’s new strategic plan as we took our first steps towards our desired outcomes of supporting feminist movements to thrive, challenging anti-rights agendas and co-creating feminist realities.
We worked with feminists to disrupt anti-rights agendas, achieving important victories fought and won within the United Nations system when ground-breaking language on structural discrimination, sexual rights, and states’ obligations were included in a number of resolutions. Yes, the multilateral system is in crisis and in need of serious strengthening but these victories are important as they contribute to the legitimacy of feminist demands, providing feminist movements with more pressure points and momentum to advance our agendas.
We tried and tested different ways to build knowledge with feminist movements through webinars, podcasts and ‘live’ conversations. We developed facilitation guides with popular educators to reclaim knowledge in the interest of social and gender justice, even about a topic as seemingly opaque as illicit funding flows. We commissioned blogs and opinions about how feminist groups fund and resource themselves and threw light on the threats facing our human rights systems.
Within AWID, we practiced and learned from our shared leadership approach, and told the story of the trials and tribulations of co-leading a global, virtual organization. We don’t have a definitive answer to what feminist leadership looks like, but we know, a year on, that a continued commitment to collective experimentation and learning has enabled us to keep building an organization that we are all excited to contribute to.
As we look back on this year, we want to thank all our friends and supporters, colleagues and companions, who have given their time and shared their wealth of knowledge and wisdom with us. We want to thank our members who helped frame our strategic plan and joined us to make feminist demands. We could not do this work without you.
What are the Forum languages?
AWID’s working languages are English, French and Spanish. Thai will be added as the local language, as well as sign language & other accessibility measures. Other languages may be added if funding permits, so check back regularly for updates. We care about language justice and will try to include as many languages as we can and as our resources allow. We hope to create multiple opportunities for many of us to be present in our languages and to communicate with each other.
Olena Tsukerman
Note des éditeurices | Des mots perdus
Note des éditeurices
Des mots perdus
Lorsque notre travail incarné devient un profit entre les mains de systèmes que nous cherchons à démanteler, il n’est pas étonnant que nos sexualités et nos plaisirs soient une fois de plus relégués à la marge – surtout lorsqu’ils ne sont pas assez rentables. À plusieurs reprises au cours de la production de ce numéro, nous nous sommes demandé ce qui se passerait si nous refusions de nous plier aux services essentiels du capitalisme. Mais pouvons-nous oser poser cette question, lorsque nous sommes épuisé·e·s par le monde? Peut-être que nos sexualités sont si facilement rejetées parce qu’elles ne sont pas considérées comme des formes de soins. Peut-être que ce dont nous avons besoin, c’est de réimaginer le plaisir comme une forme de soin radical – un soin qui est également anticapitaliste et anti-institutionnel.
Snippet - COP30 - Mutual Aid and Community Care - EN
AWID Member Exclusive: Mutual Aid and Community Care Crafting Workshop
AWID members will explore and critically evaluate the role that mutual aid can play in resourcing our movements, through collective collage making.
📅 Wednesday, November 12, 2025
📍 The People’s COP Space
2022: Transitions, Inspiration & Collective Power
Our strategic plan “Feminist Realities” completed its final year at the end of 2022. For the past five years, this bold framework pushed us to go beyond feminist futures and to recognize the feminist solutions and ways of life that already exist in the here and now. Realities that must be uplifted, celebrated, and popularized. The Feminist Economies We Love multimedia story project and Our:Resource knowledge hub on autonomous ways to resource feminist activism are just two examples of this visionary work, always deeply collective with diverse feminist movements.
Download the full 2022 Annual review
2022 was a year of transitions in AWID.
With this reflection on the year, we invite you to celebrate with us beautiful closures and promising beginnings. Change and transitions are an inseparable part of life and movements, which we seek to embrace with intention and care.
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.
Dra. Afaf Marei
