OURs Side Event at HRC47 - Rights at Risk: Time for Action

On 13 July, as part of the 47th session of the Human Rights Council (HRC), the Observatory on the Universality of Rights held a side event, ‘Rights at Risk: Time for Action,’ along with the Center for Reproductive Rights, ILGA World, International Service for Human Rights, International Planned Planned Parenthood Federation and the Permanent Mission of Sweden to the United Nations, Geneva.

'Autonomy as Resistance': A conversation with Chayanika Shah

Written and interviewed by Tenzin Dolker
Edited by Muna Gurung 
Illustrations by Priyanka Singh Maharjan

Climate Change and the Covid-19 crisis are Two Sides of the Same Coin: You Can’t Tackle One Without the Other

This article was originally published on the LSE WPS blog.

Key anti-rights trends: 47th session of the Human Rights Council

The Human Rights Council (HRC) is the UN’s main “political” human rights body, meaning it’s the main place where governments discuss human rights issues,  negotiate human rights standards,  and hold one another accountable for human rights violations. The HRC meets a few times a year, and recently concluded its 47th session in July. 

Trojan horses in human rights spaces: anti-rights discourses, tactics and their convergences with trans-exclusionary feminists

As Rights at Risk, the first trends report from ther Observatory on the Universality of Rights (OURs), highlights, ultraconservatives, fundamentalists and other anti-rights actors are operating with increased impact, frequency, coordination, resources, and support in human rights spaces that have historically been a site for feminist gains and human rights advancements.1  

How I became an advocate for sex workers’ rights

A personal reflection by African feminist Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah about her journey in becoming an advocate for sex workers' rights.

Where is the money for feminist organising? New analysis finds that the answer is alarming.

The global pandemic has exposed the deadly consequences of decades of disastrous, neoliberal policies. The obliteration of our basic social protections, in particular the privatisation of health, coupled with the climate crisis, have been devastating for people and our fragile planet. 

Women leaders and human rights defenders in Colombia: A legacy of dreams, struggles and affection that we will not silence

“[To be a woman leader] is to love and defend our
 culture, land, race, identity.
It is to defend who we are.”
- Claudia Rincón, Colombian leader

Women’s land rights activists' footprints: fighting erasure, defending communal land rights.

Throughout history against oppression, those on the frontline always know that the struggle might take their lives. For a body that persistently refuses to be invisibilized, refuses to be at the very least passive in the face of oppression, is stolen, just like the land. 

Celebrating feminist ancestors with a living archive of hope

On every corner of this planet, we who refuse to have our bodies, our minds, our communities bound and suppressed, have always had heroes, we are surrounded by them, they are with us, they are us.