It’s not so much that there isn’t enough coverage of these issues. In fact, the opposite can be true; we often feel bombarded by news coverage of the atrocities committed in the name of religion against women, and against people with non-conforming sexualities and gender identities.
The Women Human Rights Defenders Hub at the AWID Forum was many things that are beautiful, informative, and challenging. Bringing to the same space women, trans* and intersex activists working in different parts of the world, we all had the opportunity to collectively reflect on challenges, unite in healing power and exchange strategies. It was a one of a kind opportunity for committed and fierce women, trans* and intersex activists in acknowledging each other’s strength in the struggle for healing justice.
As disability scholar and activist, Martina Shabram wrote in a recent article about how Zika reveals our societies’ prejudice about disability, “too often, the narrative surrounding microcephaly relies on familiar – and disturbing – assumptions about what kind of lives are worth living.”
This poem was developed by the facilitators and participants in the session on: ‘Visions through the arts: Rights and justice for disabled and non-disabled women’ AWID 2016 Brazil conference
Connections for feminist futures.
I am bisexual. When I walk down the street some men think it is a compliment to say You are just my size’. I am also African. I am a smorgasbord of identities that could possible preclude me from fitting into the mainstream of what it would mean to be a ‘good functioning human’.
AWID’s 5th online tribute to Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRDs) who have died in recent years, commemorates sixty feminists and activists. Thirty eight of these defenders died violently, and were murdered as a result of who they were, their identities, and the rights they defended.
It is very apparent that women are more vulnerable to climate impacts because they make up the majority of those who are involved in subsistence farming and care work.
The advance of actors pushing fundamentalist agendas within international policy spaces is cause for concern this Human Rights Day. Feminists and other social justice activists must act now to reaffirm and safeguard our human rights.
Increasing evidence of the gendered impacts of corporate abuse make it imperative for feminists, WHRDs and Organizations challenging corporate power on the ground, to share their perspectives and demands. Now, more than ever, we need cross-movement solidarity to make a binding treaty a reality.