Jean-Marc Ferré | Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
A general view of participants at the 16th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland.

Special Focus

AWID is an international, feminist, membership organisation committed to achieving gender equality, sustainable development and women’s human rights

Human Rights Council (HRC)

The Human Rights Council (HRC) is the key intergovernmental body within the United Nations system responsible for the promotion and protection of all human rights around the globe. It holds three regular sessions a year: in March, June and September. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is the secretariat for the HRC.

The HRC works by:

  • Debating and passing resolutions on global human rights issues and human rights situations in particular countries

  • Examining complaints from victims of human rights violations or activist organizations on behalf of victims of human rights violations

  • Appointing independent experts (known as “Special Procedures”) to review human rights violations in specific countries and examine and further global human rights issues

  • Engaging in discussions with experts and governments on human rights issues

  • Assessing the human rights records of all UN Member States every four and a half years through the Universal Periodic Review

Learn more about the HRC


AWID works with feminist, progressive and human rights partners to share key knowledge, convene civil society dialogues and events, and influence negotiations and outcomes of the session.

With our partners, our work will:

◾️ Monitor, track and analyze anti-rights actors, discourses and strategies and their impact on resolutions

◾️ Raise awareness of the findings of the 2017 and 2021 OURs Trends Reports.

◾️Support the work of feminist UN experts in the face of backlash and pressure

◾️Advocate for state accountability
 
◾️ Work with feminist movements and civil society organizations to advance rights related to gender and sexuality.
 

Related Content

Snippet FEA Georgia's minimum wage (ES)

El salario mínimo de Georgia se encuentra en un porcentaje inferior al de todos los países del mundo. Esta realidad afecta mayoritariamente a las mujeres.

El país no solo tiene una brecha salarial de género significativa, sino que las mujeres también trabajan más horas y más horas no reguladas antes de irse a casa para ocuparse de las tareas domésticas y de sus familias. No hay licencia por maternidad, no hay aumentos de salario por horas extras, no hay seguro de desempleo, y no hay licencias por enfermedad u otra protección social. Presionados por organizaciones occidentales, los partidos políticos oligárquicos georgianos han estado implementando reformas que están destruyendo el estado de bienestar, aumentando las medidas de austeridad y empeorando la explotación de lxs trabajadorxs, todo para los beneficios de grandes corporaciones que aplauden al país por su "facilidad para hacer negocios". Los medios de comunicación, cooptados por intereses privados y corporativos, están sesgados sobre estos temas o los silencian. La organización sindical sigue siendo una de las pocas opciones para luchar por los derechos humanos básicos y para hacer que el Estado y las empresas rindan cuentas ante las violaciones y persecuciones diarias y generalizadas contra lxs trabajadorxs, especialmente contra las mujeres.

Fuentes: Minimum-Wage y entrevista con Sopo Japaridze en Democracia Abierta

Snippet - WITM Acknowledgements - AR

شكر

ان جمعية حقوق المرأة في التنمية ممتنة للعديد من الأشخاص الذين/ اللواتي ساعدت أفكارهم/ن، تحليلاتهم/ن ومساهماتهم/ن على تصميم استطلاع "أين المال" على مدار السنوات.

نشكر جزيل الشكر أعضاء/ عضوات AWID والنشطاء/ الناشطات الذين/ اللواتي شاركوا/ن في استشارات استطلاع "أين المال؟" وقاموا/ن بتجربة الاستطلاع وأعطونا بسخاء من وقتهم/ن وتحليلاتهم/ن وقلوبهم/ن.

نقدر بشكل عميق الحركات النسوية، الحلفاء/ الحليفات والصناديق النسوية بمانقدر بشكل عميق الحركات النسوية، الحلفاء/ الحليفات والصناديق النسوية وهنا بعض منها وليس جميعها: Black Feminist Fund, Pacific Feminist Fund, ASTREA, FRIDA Young Feminist Fund, Purposeful, Kosovo Women's Network, Human Rights Funders Network, CEECCNA Feminist Fund e PROSPERA, على بحثكم/ن الرائع عن وضع التمويل، تحليلكم/ن الدقيق والمناصرة المستمرة لتمويل وقوة أكبر وأفضل للحركات النسوية وتنظيمات العدالة الجندرية في جميع السياقات.

انضموا/من للمجتمع العالمي من النسويات/ين اللواتي/ اللذين يرفعن/وا صوتهم/ن ويتحدثن/وا عن التمويل، ويطالبن/وا بتمويل وبقوة أكبر وأفضل للنسويات/ين في كل مكان

Mayo 2015: tienen lugar las consultas sobre el Borrador del Documento Final

Sesiones adicionales de consulta sobre el Borrador del Documento Final

  • El 7 de mayo, los facilitadores dieron a conocer la versión revisada del Documento Final de la tercera Conferencia Internacional sobre la FpD a realizarse en Adís Abeba.
  • A fin de continuar avanzando hacia el Documento Final hubo sesiones adicionales para realizar consultas en torno al mismo los días 12 al 15 y 26 al 29 de mayo de 2015 en la sede de la ONU en Nueva York.

Challenging the economic growth model

Context

Contesting the premise that a country’s economy must always ‘grow or die’, de-growth propositions come to debunk the centrality of growth measured by increase in Gross domestic product (GDP).

Definition

A de-growth model proposes a shift towards a lower and sustainable level of production and consumption. In essence, shrinking the economic system to leave more space for human cooperation and ecosystems.

The proposal includes

  • Downsizing resource-, energy- and emission-intensive superfluous production, particularly in the North (e.g. the automotive and military industries)
  • Directing investments instead into the care sector, social infrastructure and environmental restoration

Feminist perspective

Feminist perspectives within de-growth theory and practice argue that it also needs to redefine and revalidate unpaid and paid, care and market labour to overcome traditional gender stereotypes as well as the prevailing wage gaps and income inequalities that devalue care work.


Learn more about this proposition

  • In “The Future WE Want: Occupy development” Christa Wichterich argues that in order to break up the hegemonic logic of unfettered growth and quick returns on investment, three cornerstones of another development paradigm must combine: care, commons and sufficiency in production and consumption.
  • Equitable, Ecological Degrowth: Feminist Contributions by Patricia Perkins suggests developing effective alternative indicators of well-being, including social and economic equity and work-time data, to demonstrate the importance of unpaid work and services for the economy and provide a mechanism for giving credit to those responsible.

Part of our series of


  Feminist Propositions for a Just Economy

Snippet FEA collaborator and allies Photo 4 (FR)

La photo représente Sopo prenant la parole lors d'un événement public à l'intérieur. Elle tient le micro tout en lisant ses notes et est assise sur une chaise entre trois autres personnes qui sont soit des orateur.trice.s, soit des modérateur.ice.s.

Я являюсь индивидуальной(-ым) активисткой(-том), не сотрудничающей(-им) в данный момент ни с какой группой, организацией и/или движением – могу ли я принять участие в опросе?

Нет, мы очень ценим вашу работу, но в данный момент мы не собираем информацию об отдельных активистках(-тах).

Key opposition discourses

Ultra conservative actors have developed a number of discourses at the international human rights level that call on arguments manipulating religion, culture, tradition, and national sovereignty in order to undermine rights related to gender and sexuality.

Anti-rights actors have increasingly moved away from explicitly religious language. Increasingly, we see regressive actors - who may previously have derided human rights concepts - instead manipulating and co-opting these very concepts to further their objectives.


Protection of the family

This emerging and successful discourse appears innocuous, but it functions as a useful umbrella theme to house multiple patriarchal and anti-rights positions. The ‘protection of the family’ theme is thus a key example of regressive actors’ move towards holistic and integrated advocacy.

The language of ‘protection of the family’ works to shift the subject of human rights from the individual and onto already powerful institutions.

It also affirms a unitary, hierarchical, and patriarchal conception of the family that discriminates against family forms outside of these rigid boundaries. It also attempts to change the focus from recognition and protection of the rights of vulnerable family members to non-discrimination, autonomy, and freedom from violence in the context of family relations.

The Right to Life

The Holy See and a number of Christian Right groups seek to appropriate the right to life in service of an anti-abortion mission.  Infusing human rights language with conservative religious doctrine, they argue that the right to life, as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, applies at the moment of conception.

The discourse has no support in any universal human rights instrument. Yet this is an appealing tactic for anti-rights actors, because the right to life cannot be violated under any circumstances and is a binding legal standard.

Sexual rights

Anti-rights actors use a number of rhetorical devices in their campaign to undermine sexual rights: they argue that sexual rights do not exist or are ‘new rights,’ that they cause harm to children and society, and/or that these rights stand in opposition to culture, tradition or national laws.

Conservative actors engaged in advocacy at the UN attack the right to comprehensive sexuality education from several directions. They claim that CSE violates ‘parental rights’, harms children, and that it is not education but ideological indoctrination. They also claim that comprehensive sexuality education is pushed on children, parents, and the United Nations by powerful lobbyists seeking to profit from services they provide to children and youth.

Attempts to invalidate rights related to sexual orientation and gender identity have proliferated. Ultra conservative actors argue that application of long-standing human rights principles and law on this issue constitutes the creation of ‘new rights’; and that the meaning of rights should vary radically because they should be interpreted through the lens of ‘culture’ or ‘national particularities.’

Reproductive Rights

Christian Right organizations have been mobilizing against reproductive rights alongside the Holy See and other anti-rights allies for several years. They often argue that reproductive rights are at heart a form of Western-imposed population control over countries in the global South. Ironically, this claim often originates from U.S. and Western Europe-affiliated actors, many of whom actively work to export their fundamentalist discourses and policies.

Regressive actors also cite to ‘scientific’ arguments from ultra-conservative think tanks, and from sources that rely on unsound research methodologies, to suggest that abortion causes an array of psychological, sexual, physical, and relational side effects.

Protection of children and parental rights

Just as anti-rights actors aim to construct a new category of ‘protection of the family,’ they are attempting to construct a new category of ‘parental rights,’ which has no support in existing human rights standards.

This discourse paradoxically endeavours to use the rights protections with which children are endowed, as articulated in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to support the rights of parents to control their children and limit their rights.

Violence against women

Increasingly, anti-rights actors are attempting to infiltrate and subvert standards and discourses developed by women human rights defenders, such as violence against women (VAW).

At the Commission on the Status of Women and other spaces, one rhetorical move is to treat VAW as a concept in which to embed anti-reproductive rights and patriarchal arguments. Ultra conservative actors, for example, have argued that non-heteronormative or traditional intimate partner relationships are a risk factor for violence, and emphasize that fathers are necessary to protect families from violence.

Gender and ‘gender ideology’

The Holy See has set off a sustained critique of gender, ‘gender ideology’, ‘gender radicals,’ and gender theory, and anti-rights actors often read the term as code for LGBTQ rights. Gender is used by the religious right as a cross-cutting concept that links together many of their discourses. Increasingly, the hysteria on this subject fixates on gender identity and trans rights.

Complementarity and human dignity

Complementarity of the sexes is a discourse employed by a number of ultra-conservative actors today. Its rhetoric is structured around an assumption of difference: men and women are meant to have differing but complementary roles in marriage and family life, and with respect to their engagement in the community and political and economic life.

Reference to ‘natural’ roles is meant to fundamentally reject universal human rights to equality and non-discrimination.

It is also used to justify State and non-State violations of these rights, and non-compliance with respect to State obligations to eliminate prejudices and practices based on stereotyped roles for men or women.

National sovereignty and anti-imperialism

This discourse suggests that national governments are being unjustly targeted by UN bodies, or by other States acting through the UN. This is an attempt to shift the subject of human rights from the individual or marginalized community suffering a rights violation to a powerful and/or regressive institution - i.e. the state, in order to justify national exceptions from universal rights or to support state impunity. 

Religious freedom

Anti-rights actors have taken up the discourse of freedom of religion in order to justify violations of human rights. Yet, ultra-conservative actors refer to religious freedom in a way that directly contradicts the purpose of this human right and fundamentally conflicts with the principle of the universality of rights. The inference is that religious liberty is threatened and undermined by the protection of human rights, particularly those related to gender and sexuality.

The central move is to suggest that the right to freedom of religion is intended to protect a religion rather than those who are free to hold or not hold different religious beliefs.

Yet under international human rights law, the right protects believers rather than beliefs, and the right to freedom of religion, thought and conscience includes the right not to profess any religion or belief or to change one’s religion or belief.

Cultural rights and traditional values

The deployment of references to culture and tradition to undermine human rights, including the right to equality, is a common tactic amongst anti-rights actors. Culture is presented as monolithic, static, and immutable, and it is is often presented in opposition to ‘Western norms.’

Allusions to culture by anti-rights actors in international policy debates aim to undermine the universality of rights, arguing for cultural relativism that trumps or limits rights claims. Regressive actors’ use of cultural rights is founded on a purposeful misrepresentation of the human right. States must ensure that traditional or cultural attitudes are not used to justify violations of equality, and human rights law calls for equal access, participation and contribution in all aspects of cultural life for all, including women, religious, and racial minorities, and those with non-conforming genders and sexualities.

Subverting ‘universal’

Anti-rights actors in international policy spaces increasingly manipulate references to universal or fundamental human rights to reverse the meaning of the universality of rights.

Rather than using the term universal to describe the full set of indivisible and interrelated human rights, ultra conservative actors employ this term to instead delineate and describe a subset of human rights as ‘truly fundamental.’ Other rights would thus be subject to State discretion, ‘new’ rights or optional. This discourse is especially powerful as their category of the truly universal remains unarticulated and hence open to shifting interpretation.


Other Chapters

Read the full report

Snippet FEA lines of work Against (EN)

Illustration of a pink book that says “labor rights” and has a red X on it,

LABOR RIGHT VIOLATIONS

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When development initiatives, religious fundamentalisms and the state of women’s rights collide

Nuestro nuevo documento de investigación El diablo se esconde en los detalles aborda la falta de conocimientos sobre los fundamentalismos religiosos en el sector del desarrollo, y se propone comprender mejor de qué manera estos fundamentalismos inhiben el desarrollo y, en particular, los derechos de las mujeres. Propone recomendaciones para que quienes trabajan en temas de desarrollo desafíen la labor de los fundamentalismos y eviten fortalecerlos inadvertidamente. [CTA download link: Leer el documento completo]

 

Seven pointers to consider

 

Graphic1 1. Control of women’s bodies, sexuality, and choice are “warning signs” of rising fundamentalisms.
2. Neoliberal economic policies have a particularly negative impact on women, and fuel the growth of religious fundamentalisms. Graphic2
Graphic3 3. Choosing religious organizations as default for partnerships builds their legitimacy and access to resources, and supports their ideology, including gender ideology.
4.Everyone has multiple identities and should be defined by more than just their religion. Foregrounding religious identities tends to reinforce the power of religious fundamentalists. Graphic4
Graphic5 5. Religion, culture, and tradition are constantly changing, being reinterpreted and challenged. What is dominant is always a question of power.
6. Racism, exclusion, and marginalization all add to the appeal of fundamentalists’ offer of a sense of belonging and a “cause”. Graphic6
Graphic7 7. There is strong evidence that the single most important factor in promoting women’s rights and gender equality is an autonomous women’s movement.

 

Auge global de los fundamentalismos religiosos.

El Diablo se esconde en los detalles proporciona detalles de las graves violaciones a los derechos humanos y, en particular, de las violaciones a los derechos de las mujeres, causados por los fundamentalismos auspiciados por los Estados, así como por actores fundamentalistas no estatales como milicias, organizaciones comunitarias confesionales e individuos. La profundización fundamentalista de normas sociales atávicas y patriarcales está provocando el aumento de la violencia contra las mujeres, las niñas y las defensoras de derechos humanos (WHRDs). El informe propuesta estas ideas clave para abordar el problema:

  • [icon] Fundamentalismos religiosos están ganando terreno en el seno de las comunidades
  • [icon] Sistemas políticos
  • [icon] Escenarios internacionales, con efectos devastadores para la gente común y para las mujeres en particular.

 

Los agentes de desarrollo deben actuar urgentemente.

Quienes trabajan en el desarrollo están de capacidad de asumir una posición más firme. Su capacidad colectiva para reconocer y enfrentar conjuntamente a los fundamentalismos religiosos resulta crucial para promover la justicia social, económica y de género y los derechos humanos de todas las personas en el marco del desarrollo sostenible.   Resulta fundamental promover que el poder y los privilegios se entiendan desde la óptica del feminismo interseccional y aplicar esta comprensión a los interrogantes sobre religión y cultura. Las organizaciones de mujeres ya poseen conocimientos y estrategias para oponerse a los fundamentalismos. Quienes trabajan en el desarrollo deberían apoyarse en estos e invertir en coaliciones enfocadas en múltiples temáticas. Lo anterior, les ayudará a alcanzar nuevos horizontes.

Snippet FEA Wage Parity (ES)

Ilustración de dos un par de personas de piel blanca con anteojos, a la izquierda en el fondo hay un mando y a la derecha al frente hay una mujer. El fondo es turquesa.

PARIDAD SALARIAL

هل استطلاع "أين المال" متاح للأشخاص ذوي/ات الإعاقات؟

نعم، انه متاح للأشخاص أصحاب/ صاحبات الإعاقات السمعية، البصرية، النظرية والفكرية المختلفة.

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The AWID Forum registration fees for all forum participants cover:

  • Full access to all four days of the Forum
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Reason to join 2

Encuentra y crea conexiones. AWID cuenta con más de 6000 afiliadxs, todxs dedicadxs a abordar cuestiones complementarias e interconectadas. En esta diversidad se apoya la sostenibilidad de los movimientos y actorxs feministas.