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Special Focus

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

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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Téléchargez maintenant : Le calendrier féministe de l'AWID 2024

Image of a calendar on a wall. https://www.awid.org/sites/default/files/2024-02/calendar-mockup_gif_0.gif

Ce calendrier nous invite à nous immerger dans le monde inspirant de l'art féministe. Chaque mois, au fur et à mesure de son déploiement délicat, il présentera les œuvres vivantes d'artistes féministes et queer de nos communautés. Leurs créations ne sont pas de simples images; ce sont des récits profonds qui résonnent avec des expériences de lutte, de triomphe et de courage indéfectible établissant notre quête collective. Ces histoires visuelles, débordantes de couleurs et d'émotions, servent à combler les distances et à tisser ensemble nos expériences diverses, nous rapprochant dans nos missions partagées.

Ce calendrier constitue notre appel à vous : utilisez-le, imprimez-le, partagez-le. Laissez-le être votre partenaire quotidien dans votre parcours, un rappel constant de notre interconnexion et de nos visions partagées pour un monde meilleur.

Laissez-le vous inspirer, tout comme il nous inspire, afin d’avancer ensemble.

Image of a section of the 2024 calendar cover. Is show the top of a pyramid, a celestial object orbited by dancing naked bodies and a face with a third eye have open emerging from the water in the horizon.

Utilisez-le, imprimez-le, partagez-le.

Obtenez-le dans votre langue préférée !

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Elisa Badayos

Elisa was the coordinator for the human rights organization Karapatan in Negros Oriental Province in the Philippines.

She also served as an organiser of urban poor communities in Cebu Province, and worked with Desaparecidos, an organization of families of the disappeared.

Elisa and two of her colleagues were killed on November 28, 2017 by two unidentified men at Barangay San Ramon, Bayawan city in the Negros Oriental province during a mission to investigate alleged land rights abuses in the area.

She is survived by four children.

 


 

Elisa Badayos, Philippines

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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Where: Bangkok, Thailand; and online
Who: Approximately 2,500 feminists from all over the world participating in- person, and 3,000 participating virtually

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Guadalupe Campanur Tapia

Guadalupe fue una activista ambiental comprometida en la lucha contra el crimen en Cherán, México.

En abril de 2011 ayudó a derrocar el gobierno local, y participó en patrullas locales de seguridad, que abarcaban los bosques municipales. Era unx de lxs líderes indígenas de Cherán que llamaban a la población a defender sus bosques contra la tala forestal ilegal y despiadada. Su trabajo en defensa de adultxs mayores, niñxs y trabajadorxs la convirtió en un ícono de su comunidad.

Fue asesinada en Chilchota, México, aproximadamente 30 kilómetros al norte de su ciudad natal de Cherán.

 


 

Guadalupe Campanur Tapia, Mexico

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The WITM survey is focused on the feminist resourcing realities of the last 3 years (2021 to 2023), and has five key sections:

  1. Group information
  2. Financial status
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Winnie Madikizela- Mandela

Winnie a été décrite comme une « militante enflammée » qui a combattu le régime de l’apartheid en Afrique du Sud.

Son engagement lui a valu d’être emprisonnée et placée en cellule d’isolement de nombreuses fois.

Affectueusement surnommée Ma’Winnie, elle était connue pour être quelqu’un qui parlait ouvertement des défis auxquels les femmes noires étaient confrontées pendant et après l’apartheid et cela, après avoir elle-même subi ces brutalités en tant que mère, épouse et militante pendant la lutte. Elle a su transcender l'idée couramment répandue selon laquelle le leadership est fondé sur le genre, la classe ou la race. Bien qu’étant une personnalité controversée, elle était connue par son nom xhosa, « Nomzamo », qui signifie « celle qui supporte les épreuves ».

Ma’Winnie continue d’être une source d’inspiration pour de nombreuses personnes, en particulier des jeunes femmes sud-africaines.

Sa mort a impulsé la naissance d’un mouvement qui a pour mantra : « Elle n’est pas morte, elle s’est multipliée ».

 


 

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, South Africa

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Apreciaremos propuestas de actividades referidas a todo el rango de áreas temáticas e intersecciones que son importantes para los movimientos feministas y por la justicia de género. 

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