As part of the Global Women’s Climate Justice Day of Action this 29 September 2015, AWID spoke to Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, Coordinating Committee Member of The Women’s Global Call for Climate Justice, to learn more about the global campaign and mobilizing for women’s rights, including Indigenous women’s rights to climate justice, with a view to the upcoming 21st Conference of Parties of the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (COP21).

On September 22nd, during the 30th session of the Human Rights Council, we co-hosted a side event with the Sexual Rights Initiative (SRI) to discuss protection gaps around sexual rights. The five panelists discussed the nature and causes of existing protection gaps in sexual rights, and gave recommendations to further protections for all individuals in the field of sexuality.

This week, the Post-2015 Development Agenda will be formally adopted, culminating in 3 years of intense work for numerous stakeholders. As a youth representative of civil society – the ASTRA Youth network of young sexual and reproductive health and rights advocates, I feel honoured to have had the opportunity to cooperate with a group of amazing activists, who have been tirelessly advocating for youth and women’s rights, trying to ensure that the new agenda is ambitious, progressive and human rights-focused.

On the verge of a fast approaching civil war, women in Turkey are calling for unconditional and immediate peace, and for an end to the harassment and violence against dissenting women in Turkey. As we commemorated International Day of Peace on 21st September and a call for a global ceasefire, AWID takes a look at the situation of women human rights defenders in Turkeys increasing conflict.

Women and girls are in the public eye, recognized as key agents in development, like never before. Yet this increased interest is not translating into resources for the very organizations that are key to creating sustained systematic change in the lives of women and girls, as a new animation video from AWID shows.

The political crisis in the east African country Burundi has led to a wave of demonstrations and violence in the country, with deeply worrying consequences. AWID spoke to Nelly Kandatwa, President of the Burundian League for Women’s Rights “Mwubahirize,” and the SOS Women in Distress Network Burundi, to better understand the situation from a women’s rights perspective. 

A powerful youth is leading a human rights struggle in Bahrain, which receives very little media coverage. Following the aftermath of the Bahrain Uprising of 2011, the Bahraini authorities continue to respond violently to activists and refuses to release thousands of political prisoners behind bars all due to demanding democratic change.

After a three-year process, country representatives meeting in the basement of United Nations headquarters in New York adopted, in the late evening of Sunday 2 August, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to guide global development priorities for the next fifteen years.

Amid a rising tide of widespread violence in the country the State of Mexico issued its first-ever Gender Alert. AWID spoke to Maria Luz Estrada and Patricia Bedolla of the National Citizen’s Feminicide Observatory to discuss what this means for women human rights defenders in Mexico State.

Under the auspices of ‘national security’, a host of countries are experiencing increased criminalization of dissent, coupled with shrinking spaces for social justice activism and work. For organisations that rely on foreign-sourced funding for their work, the implications are dire.