Dolorosa Mubvumbi
Women Human Rights Defenders
WHRDs are self-identified women and lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LBTQI) people and others who defend rights and are subject to gender-specific risks and threats due to their human rights work and/or as a direct consequence of their gender identity or sexual orientation.
WHRDs are subject to systematic violence and discrimination due to their identities and unyielding struggles for rights, equality and justice.
The WHRD Program collaborates with international and regional partners as well as the AWID membership to raise awareness about these risks and threats, advocate for feminist and holistic measures of protection and safety, and actively promote a culture of self-care and collective well being in our movements.
Risks and threats targeting WHRDs
WHRDs are exposed to the same types of risks that all other defenders who defend human rights, communities, and the environment face. However, they are also exposed to gender-based violence and gender-specific risks because they challenge existing gender norms within their communities and societies.
By defending rights, WHRDs are at risk of:
- Physical assault and death
- Intimidation and harassment, including in online spaces
- Judicial harassment and criminalization
- Burnout
A collaborative, holistic approach to safety
We work collaboratively with international and regional networks and our membership
- to raise awareness about human rights abuses and violations against WHRDs and the systemic violence and discrimination they experience
- to strengthen protection mechanisms and ensure more effective and timely responses to WHRDs at risk
We work to promote a holistic approach to protection which includes:
- emphasizing the importance of self-care and collective well being, and recognizing that what care and wellbeing mean may differ across cultures
- documenting the violations targeting WHRDs using a feminist intersectional perspective;
- promoting the social recognition and celebration of the work and resilience of WHRDs ; and
- building civic spaces that are conducive to dismantling structural inequalities without restrictions or obstacles
Our Actions
We aim to contribute to a safer world for WHRDs, their families and communities. We believe that action for rights and justice should not put WHRDs at risk; it should be appreciated and celebrated.
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Promoting collaboration and coordination among human rights and women’s rights organizations at the international level to strengthen responses concerning safety and wellbeing of WHRDs.
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Supporting regional networks of WHRDs and their organizations, such as the Mesoamerican Initiative for WHRDs and the WHRD Middle East and North Africa Coalition, in promoting and strengthening collective action for protection - emphasizing the establishment of solidarity and protection networks, the promotion of self-care, and advocacy and mobilization for the safety of WHRDs;
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Increasing the visibility and recognition of WHRDs and their struggles, as well as the risks that they encounter by documenting the attacks that they face, and researching, producing, and disseminating information on their struggles, strategies, and challenges:
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Mobilizing urgent responses of international solidarity for WHRDs at risk through our international and regional networks, and our active membership.
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Snippet - COP30 - The People's Summit
The People's Summit
The climate summit by movements, for movements.
📅 November 12 - November 16, 2025
📍 Universidade Federal do Pará, Belém
Stacey Park Milbern
“I do not know a lot about spirituality or what happens when we die, but my crip queer Korean life makes me believe that our earthly bodyminds is but a fraction, and not considering our ancestors is electing only to see a glimpse of who we are.” - Stacey Park Milbern
Stacey Park Milbern was a self-identifying queer disabled woman of colour and a trailblazer. A long-standing and respected organizer and leader in the disability rights and justice movement, she also advocated for the rights of many different communities, not just her own. Stacey’s activism had mighty roots in her experience at the intersections of gender, disability, sexuality and race.
Stacey, along with some friends, co-created the Disability Justice Culture Club, a group working to support various and especially vulnerable communities, including helping homeless people gain access to resources during the COVID-19 pandemic.
She was also a co-producer of an impact campaign for Netflix’s documentary “Crip Camp”, a board member of the WITH Foundation, and led organizations at local, state and national levels. Stacey wrote beautifully and powerfully:
“My ancestors are people torn apart from loves by war and displacement. It’s because of them I know the power of building home with whatever you have, wherever you are, whoever you are with. My ancestors are queers who lived in the American South. It’s because of them I understand the importance of relationships, place and living life big, even if it is dangerous. All of my ancestors know longing. Longing is often our connecting place...” - Stacey Park Milbern
She was born in Seoul, Korea and grew up in North Carolina, later continuing her journey in the San Francisco Bay Area. Stacey passed away of complications from surgery on her 33rd birthday on 19 May 2020.
Read an essay by Stacey Park Milbern
Listen to an interview with Stacey Park Milbern
#StaceyTaughtUs: Record your story for the Disability Visibility Project
Tributes:
“She was, a lot of people would say, a leader. She kind of encompassed all of it. You know, sometimes there's like a lead from the front, lead from the middle, lead from the back. And she was just somehow able to do all of that.” - Andraéa LaVant, disability rights activist
“What a blow to lose Stacey when our communities need her leadership more than ever, and at a time when her strength, insight, and grit were receiving increased recognition outside of disability circles, giving her a greater platform to advance her life’s work...We will not have the gift of learning where her charismatic leadership would have taken us. But let there be no doubt: What Stacey gave us, in a relatively short time, will continue benefiting others for years to come.” - Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF)
CFA 2023 - breadcrumbs Menu _ awid-forum-es
Financiamiento de los movimientos feministas
La encuesta "¿Dónde está el dinero?" #WITM ya está disponible. Participa y comparte tu experiencia en la financiación de tu organización con feministas de todo el mundo.
Obtén más información y participa de la encuesta
En todo el mundo, los movimientos feministas, de derechos de las mujeres y aliados están enfrentando al poder y reimaginando políticas de liberación. Las contribuciones que sostienen este trabajo llegan de muchas formas, desde recursos financieros y políticos a actos diarios de resistencia y supervivencia.
La iniciativa de AWID Financiando a los Movimientos Feministas (FMF) echa luz sobre el actual ecosistema de financiamiento, el cual abarca desde modelos autogenerados a corrientes de financiamiento más formales.
Mediante nuestra investigación y análisis, indagamos cómo las prácticas de financiamiento pueden servir mejor a nuestros movimientos. Analizamos críticamente las contradicciones de «financiar» la transformación social, especialmente en vistas de la creciente represión política, las agendas anti-derechos y el creciente poder corporativo. Sobre todo, construimos estrategias colectivas para apoyar movimientos prósperos, fuertes y resilientes.
Nuestras acciones
Reconociendo la riqueza de nuestros movimientos y respondiendo al momento actual, nosotrxs:
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Creamos y difundimos alternativas: Difundimos prácticas de financiamiento que ponen en el centro las prioridades de lxs propixs activistas e involucramos a un amplio espectro de financiadoras y activistas para que desarrollen nuevos y dinámicos modelos para financiar los movimientos feministas, especialmente en un contexto en el que se reducen los espacios para la sociedad civil.
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Construimos conocimiento: Analizamos, intercambiamos y fortalecemos el conocimiento sobre cómo los movimientos atraen, organizan y utilizan los recursos que necesitan para lograr cambios significativos.
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Hacemos incidencia: Trabajamos de manera colaborativa, como en el Consorcio Count Me In, para influir sobre las agendas de financiamiento y abrimos espacios para el diálogo directo entre/con los movimientos feministas para redistribuir poderes y dineros..
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with Nazik Abylgaziva, Amaranta Gomez Regalado, Cindy Weisner, and Lucineia Freitas.
Nadia Vera
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CFA 2023 - Who, where, when - EN
When: 2–5 December 2024
Where: Bangkok, Thailand; and online
Who: Approximately 2,500 feminists from all over the world participating in- person, and 3,000 participating virtually
Where: Bangkok, Thailand; and online
Who: Approximately 2,500 feminists from all over the world participating in- person, and 3,000 participating virtually
Sexting Like a Feminist: Humor in the Digital Feminist Revolution | Title Snippet
Sexting Like a Feminist: Humor in the Digital Feminist Revolution
by Chinelo Onwualu
Ana Lilia Gatica Romulo
L’AWID EN 2014 : Renforcer les processus d’organisation en faveur des droits des femmes dans le monde entier
Snippet - COP30 - Political Education Toolbox - ES
📚 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?”
CFA 2023 - breadcrumbs Menu _ cfa-forum-es
#9 - Sexting like a feminist Tweets Snippet ES
Siempre es bueno fijar las reglas básicas
¡Deja tus prejuicios, tus preconceptos Y tu ropa de la puerta para afuera!
Berta Cáceres Flores
2019: Feminist Realities in a changing world
AWID began preparing this annual report just as the global pandemic began to unravel how we gather, organize and live our lives. It is impossible to review what we have done without COVID-19 tinting our assessment.
Download the full 2019 Annual review
Co-Creating Feminist Realities is no longer just an AWID Forum theme - it is a rallying cry in response to a pandemic that has laid bare the failures of social, political and economic systems.
It is an urgently needed affirmation that there are other, more just ways of organizing our lives. During 2019 hundreds of groups shared their experiences and proposals for feminist realities with us, ranging from radical networks of community support in Latin America facilitating self-managed abortion, to practices of community-centered economies in Indonesia and community-centered food systems in India and the US, to a re-imagination and new practice of harm-free rites of passage in Sierra Leone. These are the experiences that will chart a path forward for a “new normal”.
Yet long histories of oppression and violence can make it difficult to imagine the possible. A key part of our work in 2019 was to spark these explorations through a toolkit AWID launched to support groups interested in unearthing the stories and aspirations that are the building blocks of feminist propositions.
While we focus on our proposals for a different world, we recognize the challenging context around us.
Through the Observatory on the Universality of Rights, Feminists for a Binding Treaty, Count Me In! and other alliances, AWID has continued to push back against unfettered corporate power and fascist and fundamentalist agendas that undermine women’s rights and gender justice. With dim prospects for transformative change through multilateral processes and limited responsiveness from most states, we are redoubling our efforts to ensure that feminist movements, in all their diversity, are resourced in ways that match the critical roles they play - supporting their communities, demanding rights and responding to crises. In 2019 we introduced feminist principles and approaches to ground-breaking funds like the Spotlight Initiative and the Equality Fund, and succeeded in leveraging resources through feminist reality seed grant funding from feminist funders.
As we look ahead, it is clear that the context is calling for a transformation of our organizing strategies:
- we are learning to navigate global advocacy confined to online channels,
- we grapple with the uncertainty of when and how we can convene in person, and
- we use the tools at our disposal to tighten connections across local to global spheres.
AWID is embarking on a new membership model that lowers barriers to access and emphasizes opportunities for engagement and cross-member connection. We will continue to experiment with different online tools and processes for building community. Cross-movement engagement will stay at the center of our work. AWID’s actions in solidarity with oppressed movements and identities, even and especially where these are marginalized in feminist movements, are important to drive change and support broad and inclusive movements for all.
Crisis is not new to feminist and social movements.
We are resilient, we adapt, and we show up for each other. And we have to keep doing better. Thank you to all who are part of the journey with us.
Download the full 2019 Annual review
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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
CFA 2023 - Submit application card - ES
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.
#5 - Sexting like a feminist Tweets Snippet FR
L’analyse minutieuse nécessite de recourir à tous les outils à notre disposition…
Moi je préfère l’approche intersectionnelle, soit la méthode langue et doigt.