The Maputo Protocol is a ground-breaking women’s rights legal instrument that expands and reinforces the rights provided in other human rights instruments. The Protocol provides a broad range of economic and social welfare rights for women. Importantly it was produced by Africans and pays attention to the concerns of African women.

FRIDAY FILE: The 2011-2012 UN Women Report “Progress of the World’s Women: In Pursuit of Justice” analyzes women’s access to justice, from legal frameworks to justice for women during and after conflict.

FRIDAY FILE: About 20 months ago, Chile was shaken by its worst catastrophe in 50 years. For the majority of those affected, reconstruction has been a very slow process and is another unresolved problem that the Sebastian Piñera government has.

AWID spoke to Natalia Flores González, Executive Secretary at Observatorio Género y Equidad (El Observatorio)(Gender and Equity Watch) about how the disaster affected women’s rights and their role in the response and reconstruction processes.

By Gabriela De Cicco

FRIDAY FILE: Four years ago, in 2007, a Brazilian judge prosecuted 1,500 women for procuring abortions.[i] That same year, a twenty-year-old woman, Ana María Acevedo, died in Argentina of cancer-related complications because her doctors refused to treat her; she was pregnant and an abortion might have saved her life.

FRIDAY FILE: Conflict, violence, famine and natural disasters are just a few reasons why women are forced to flee their homes and become displaced. To better understand the situation of women refugees and internally displaced women in Africa, AWID interviewed Yifat Susskind, MADRE’s Executive Director.

FRIDAY FILE: The HIV and AIDS Prevention and Control Bill, which criminalizes the transmission of HIV and AIDS in cases where a person is aware that they are HIV positive, was tabled in Uganda’s Parliament in 2010. The Bill has a number of adverse human and women’s rights implications.

By Kathambi Kinoti

FRIDAY FILE: Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRDs) in Zimbabwe are routinely arrested, unlawfully detained and subjected to ill-treatment whilst in prison, all for engaging in peaceful protest. AWID tries to unravel the complexities of the context in which they work to understand how WHRDs are affected by politically motivated violence, the land reform process and the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

By Amanda Shaw

Since 2005 feminist and women’s movements in Argentina have been working tirelessly to articulate and promote the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe and Free Abortion. AWID spoke to Claudia Anzorena, a sociologist and activist, about the Campaign and its goals and achievements.

By Gabriela De Cicco

FRIDAY FILE: More than 100 million women worldwide wear diamond engagement rings, but at what cost to women in mining communities in Southern Africa and elsewhere?

By Masum Momaya

As another summer ‘engagement ring season’ comes to a close in the northern hemisphere, jewelers in countries such as Germany, India, Japan and the US are calculating profits from sales of rings bought for women as a promise of marriage.

FRIDAY FILE: Almost four years after Nepal’s Supreme Court recognized the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people, the South Asian country may get a new constitution that secures their rights.[i]

By Kathambi Kinoti