FRIDAY FILE - Gulalai Ismail, a 25-year-old woman human rights defender (WHRD) and Chairperson of Aware Girls[1], has been working from an early age to improve conditions for young women in Pakistan.

Gulalai shares with AWID her experiences as a young WHRD living in a context of oppression and discrimination in the name of culture and religion.

By Katherine Ronderos

FRIDAY FILE: Six months after the 4thHigh Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF-4) took place in Busan, a new Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC) was launched, but civil society organizations have expressed concerns about the inclusiveness of the process and scepticism that any real change will take place.

FRIDAY FILE: AWID interviewed Cai Yiping[i]about the status of women's rights and major issues affecting women in China - the history of women's struggles for equality, what has been achieved and what challenges remain.

By Rochelle Jones

AWID: How would you describe the status of women's rights in China at present and what are the major issues women are facing?

FRIDAY FILE: A coup d’état and the occupation of northern Mali have left many searching for answers to a deepening crisis.

AWID spoke with Head of Cooperation at the Netherlands Embassy in Mali, To Tjoelker, and socio-anthropologist Lalla Mariam Haidara, native of Timbuktu and specialist on women’s rights in Mali, to shed light on the situation.

By Ani Colekessian

FRIDAY FILE - Women human rights defenders (WHRDs) who promote the rights; health and safety of sexual workers are being persecuted, harassed and arrested.

Although sexual work is illegal in Uganda, providing services and support for sex workers is not.

By Katherine Ronderos

FRIDAY FILE: On June 22, 2012, almost three years after the coup d’etat in Honduras, the Paraguayan Senate removed President Fernando Lugo from office after finding him guilty of impeachment in a 39 to 4 vote.

AWID talked with Paraguayan political scientist and feminist lawyer Line Bareiro about this situation.

By Gabriela De Cicco

FRIDAY FILE: The pace of change has been slow for South Sudan since it became the newest country on 9 July 2011.

AWID spoke to Lilian Riziq, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Irrigation in Western Bhar El Ghazal State, Wau about some of the challenges for women in the fledgling nation.

By Susan Tolmay

AWID: It has been nearly a year since South Sudan became an independent nation, what, if anything, has changed for women in South Sudan during this period?

FRIDAY FILE - Threats and violence against women journalists are on the rise in many regions of the world. In their work exposing injustices and bearing witness to human rights violations, women journalists are women human rights defenders and as such are in need of better security and protection mechanisms.

By Katherine Ronderos

While governments were selling out on women’s reproductive rights at the official United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), women’s rights and feminist groups were organizing at the People’s Summit for Social and Environmental Justice to denounce the green economy and neoliberal development model and offer feminist proposals in relation to the future of the planet.

By Alejandra Scampini

FRIDAY FILE: Between January and February 2012, while demonstrating against the passing of a law violating their human and territorial rights, the Ngöbe-Buglé indigenous community from Panama suffered brutal repression. AWID spoke to Mariela Arce (1) about this situation.

By Gabriela De Cicco