Across the globe, feminist, women’s rights and gender justice defenders are challenging the agendas of fascist and fundamentalist actors. These oppressive forces target women, persons who are non-conforming in their gender identity, expression and/or sexual orientation, and other oppressed communities.
Discriminatory ideologies are undermining and co-opting our human rights systems and standards, with the aim of making rights the preserve of only certain groups. In the face of this, the Advancing Universal Rights and Justice (AURJ) initiative promotes the universality of rights - the foundational principle that human rights belong to everyone, no matter who they are, without exception.
We create space for feminist, women’s rights and gender justice movements and allies to recognize, strategize and take collective action to counter the influence and impact of anti-rights actors. We also seek to advance women’s rights and feminist frameworks, norms and proposals, and to protect and promote the universality of rights.
Alors que les fondamentalismes, les fascismes et autres systèmes d’oppression se métamorphosent et trouvent de nouvelles tactiques et stratégies pour consolider leur pouvoir et influence, les mouvements féministes persévèrent et célèbrent leurs victoires nationales, régionales et internationales.
La reconnaissance en 2019 par le Conseil des droits de l’Homme du droit à l’intégrité et à l’autonomie corporelles, par exemple, a marqué une étape cruciale. Des résolutions du Conseil sur la discrimination envers les femmes et les filles admettent cependant un recul lié à des groupes de pression rétrogrades, des conceptions idéologiques ou un détournement de la culture ou la religion pour s’opposer à l’égalité de leurs droits. Des avancées féministes sont aussi notées dans le travail des Procédures spéciales, qui soulignent notamment l’obligation des États de contrer les doctrines de l’idéologie du genre, rappellent à l’ordre les antidroits qui détournent des références à la « culture », et signalent que les convictions religieuses ne peuvent pas servir à justifier la violence ou la discrimination.
Prior to her retirement, she held many high profile positions including member of the Court of Appeal of Uganda and Deputy Chief Justice of Uganda. She was the first Ugandan woman to hold the position of Chief Magistrate between 1973 and 1986 and the first woman to be appointed High court judge in 1986.
She was one of the first ever women papal knights in the history of the Catholic Church in Africa. She died of a heart attack.
The Circle’s Conspiracy of Writers | Wazina Zondon
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| Also known as the Teta Research Network, The Conspiracy of Writers was founded in 2021 in the context of Kohl’s weekly writing circles. The Network is a transnational group of queer and feminist writers who engage in collective writing, thinking, and world-making. | Wazina Zondon is an Afghan raised in New York City. Her storycollecting and storytelling work centers collective memories and rites of passage in the diaspora. Currently, she is working on Faith: in Love/faith in love which (re)traces her parent’s love story and family’s inherited love print. |
Love is a contraband in Hell,
cause love is acid
that eats away bars.
But you, me, and tomorrow
hold hands and make vows
that struggle will multiply.
The hacksaw has two blades.
The shotgun has two barrels.
We are pregnant with freedom.
We are a conspiracy.
It is our duty to fight for freedom.
It is our duty to win.
We must love each other and support each other.
We have nothing to lose but our chains.
- “Love” by Assata Shakur
That is the question Wazina Zondon asks in her collective memoir Loveprint. Loveprint is a wandering, an overlap, a deviation that (re)creates, at the intersection of interviews and personal essays, our family’s stories and insights on love, partnership and romance. Under Wazina’s guidance, the circle’s conspiracy of writers came together and attempted to reproduce this literal blueprint in the form of collective writing, where our different stories, our genders and sexual identities complement and contradict each other. With our voices overlapping, we complete each other’s sentences to create a conversation, a memorial, pieces of ourselves that speak to a “we.”
I am a so-called “happy accident.” There is much narration about this – an accidental life, one that is entirely wanted at the same time. I feel this shaped my way of loving, I don’t just fall in love; I risk the slips that lead to the fall. Perhaps it made me an amor fati kind of person.
I was told that I was an unwanted child. So I grew up to become an unwanted adult. The origins of my love print are based on being eternally unwelcomed. I am not a fruit of love or any happy feelings but rather one pain and burden. I don’t have a love print – at least not in this sense.
I know for a fact that both my parents were in love at some point, but mental health is such a demon, and until one confronts their demons, there is no winning.
I will never associate “love” with my parents or normative family. Love growing up was full of violence and responsibilities I didn’t sign up for or was even ready for. For the longest time, it felt like life and love were about carrying a big rock uphill. While my parents “loved each other,” it was a toxic ethos of violence, jealousy, and insecurity to grow up in. I grew up wanting to crave stability, and this is what is me now. I am a risk taker, but never in my “love space.”
I don’t know why my mother chose to host a child (me) within her.
She does not love in this form.
My mother tells me that if I have to think about “finding” love, I should never look at her marriage as a template. My love print comes instead from my raising dogs for the last two decades (18 years to be precise). The other way around is true as well – they raised me. I understand more and more about love and its many layers in their company.
I haven’t known love from a “print.” In our household we don’t talk about love. I had to teach myself how to love. It was hard work. Still, I fail and still, I keep on trying and I fail everyday. Perhaps failure is my love print.
My love print is the care, warmth, and understanding I give to others
surrounding me, whether a stranger, a friend, a relative, a lover.
My love print is political – uncalculated and unthought of.
I was born under heavy shelling.
My love print is the negative
print of that.
I know more about what love is not than I know about what love is.
Love is neither anxiety nor panic.
Love is not asking permission to live or breathe. It is always about love and there is no love without freedom.
Everything you do is about using your heart except love. Love is about using your mind.
Sometimes I fear that my love language is lost in translation.
--- There are many ways
to map the origins
of how to
how not to
love
not love
love just enough
love far too much
some love
some loss
to love
to love lost ---
I cannot stand the idea of the couple. I cannot stand the idea of living alone while aging either. I am tired of doing the chores alone, moving houses alone, paying rent and bills alone... I imagine getting a stroke alone, and it scares me. I have no plan of “partnering up.” I want a world where I can get married to a friend, buy a house with a friend, not have sex.
Loving many does not corrupt a love shared between two, and whether love is romantic or not is really not that important.
When I reflect on the shoddy state of my relationships, I realize that I am in the relationship I was trained to be in. With all my “radicalness” I have not yet unlearned shitty gendered norms.
My need for stability feels “not radical” enough. I want to get out of this labeling. I want something I never had. I want to make it beautiful. I want to feel beautiful and safe – and only stability makes me feel that. Safe, sound, knowing home is neither about violence nor strife.
--- Love print – love to smell the books to see
where they were printed
I try to think of the origin of my
understanding and practice of love
Do we need origin, it is not the same as purity?
No purity or origin of love.
Why is it understanding and practice,
and not “emotion” that comes to mind? ---
When I call my parents, I don’t hang up the phone after we’ve said
goodbye, so I can hear the sounds of home.
During my Sunni burial, I want all the women and men to come together for my burial. What’s with not being able to go say goodbye to dead people from a different sex? It will be Sunni because my mother would want it to be. It will be eco-friendly; no need for the headstone. I love all burial rituals. Quran is good, but I also want music. I really like Asmahan, Um Kulthum, and The Stone Roses.
I have a Monday-Friday playlist and two different ones for the weekend: one for Saturday and one for Sunday playlist. I would like those who loved me to play the music that I used to listen to, respecting the days – with some margin of tolerance as long as they stick to the playlists.
I want to be surrounded by the one(s) who have loved me, even for a moment. And in music and embowered in fresh cut flowers. I don’t want to be discovered dead; I want to pass away mid-laugh with loved ones.
I want to be remembered as someone who loved.
I don’t need to feel loved in death. I need the people around me to feel I loved them, even after I die. Being loved in death is about those who are alive. So I think more about how we come together as a living and loving community in the death of those we love and live with. How we take their memories with us. How we become archives of their lives.
--- Sometimes, you can only love people in their death. ---
I have to think back to the body being connected to a space. My family is very tiny and although we come from different places, it is as if every generation moved somewhere new. Perhaps this is the reason why death is not connected to a special place, a cemetery. It is common in our family to bury the dead without names or gravestones, or to distribute the ashes in the wind. I feel at peace with this kind of spaceless remembrance. The idea that my ashes fertilize new life gives me the sense of being loved, being remembered through recreation. My grandmother died earlier this year due to complications after the vaccination. Two hours after she died, my family sat laughing tears about her jokes, her hilarious way to tell stories. We laughed and loved, and it was as though she sat with us again. This is what would make me feel at peace – fertilizing soil, fertilizing conversations, and collective remembrance.
--- There were
Two streets that I used
To walk
To run
To play
To stay
There were
Five hours when the sun
Was hot
The sky was blue
The earth was green
There was
A flower I could
Smell
Touch
Squeeze
Crush
There were
The friends I could
Caress
The food
I could
inhale
The language
That would roll off my
lips
There might still be
Those many places
And things
And people
After me ---
Perhaps a promise that I will be “spatially commemorated” as a plant and taken care of in turns until it becomes a tree is enough. No name, no plaques – just the plant/tree, and knowing that it will be cared for. As for my body, I want to be cremated without any rituals and my bone ashes set free in the Arabian sea.
I need my body to be treated as subversively as it’s lived.
I do not want to be buried next to my family. In this tiny drawer next to all of the people who never knew me. Trapped in death as I was in life. I want to be cremated, and my ashes finally set free.
I want to be allowed to pass, not hang in the in-between, so it is a presence, an active process, a trespassing.
I will ask of you:
I want to be remembered for the love I put into the world.
I want my body to be given away, and my organs
to further fuel love in (an)other live(s).
--- The smell of jasmine ---
This journal edition in partnership with Kohl: a Journal for Body and Gender Research, will explore feminist solutions, proposals and realities for transforming our current world, our bodies and our sexualities.
نصدر النسخة هذه من المجلة بالشراكة مع «كحل: مجلة لأبحاث الجسد والجندر»، وسنستكشف عبرها الحلول والاقتراحات وأنواع الواقع النسوية لتغيير عالمنا الحالي وكذلك أجسادنا وجنسانياتنا.
From India, Janette was feisty, formidable, compassionate and loving.
Janette’s intolerance of injustice and fierce commitment to standing up for all people’s rights led her to work at TARSHI (an NGO that works on sexuality and sexual and reproductive health and rights) for more than 15 years. Janette ably managed and led the finance, human resources and operations aspects of TARSHI’s work, adeptly navigating the labyrinthine bureaucracy to which Indian NGOs are subjected.
Her team remembers that “She stood watch so we could steer well in open waters. A woman of many talents, Janette not only helped us procure our own office space but also designed it for optimal usage.She loved travel and animals and was interested in animal assisted therapy."
If your activity is accepted, you will be contacted by the AWID team to assess and respond to interpretation and accessibility needs.
Most of María’s life was devoted to incorporating a feminist and gender perspective in institutional and organizational work, and capacity building in Latin America.
As a child, María had a strong interest in art, communication, nature, literature, and the achievement of justice, especially for women and marginalized groups.
María was committed to sexual and reproductive rights and was a member of the National Board for Integral Education in Sexuality. She is remembered by those who loved her as a “passionate and restless fighter” with a strong commitment to women’s and children’s rights.
ภาษาที่ AWID ใช้งานคือ ภาษาอังกฤษ ภาษาฝรั่งเศส และภาษาสเปน โดยภาษาไทยจะถูกเพิ่มเข้ามาในฐานะภาษาท้องถิ่น รวมถึงภาษามือและมาตราการในการช่วยให้เข้าถึงอื่นๆ โดยภาษาอื่นๆอาจถูกเพิ่มเข้ามาหากมีงบประมาณเพียงพอ สามารถเข้ามาดูการอัปเดทว่ามีการเพิ่มภาษาอื่นใดบางได้เรื่อยๆ เราใส่ใจในความยุติธรรมด้านภาษาและจะพยายามให้มีภาษามากที่ที่สุดเท่าที่งบประมาณจะสามารถครอบคลุมได้ เราหวังว่าเราจะสามารถสร้างโอกาสมากมายให้พวกเราสามารถสื่อสารกันหรือนำเสนอในภาษาของตัวเองได้
This story is about how an increasingly diverse group of feminists from the Pacific organized through the years to attend the AWID Forums and how that process changed them personally, as organizations, and as a movement through what they learned, discovered and experienced. It illustrates the importance of the Forums as a space through which a region that tends to be marginalized or ignored at the global level can build a strong presence in the feminist movement that is then replicated at other international women’s rights spaces.
Dora was born in Benue State, Nigeria. She was a globally acclaimed pharmacist, technocrat, erudite scholar and community leader.
Dora’s revolutionary work created a paradigm shift in the Nigerian public service when she served as Director General of National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) from 2001-2008. She spearheaded reforms in policy and regulatory enforcement that radically reduced the measure of fake drugs that plagued the Nigerian pharmaceutical sector during her tenure.
Having exemplified the reality of a courageous, competent woman who challenged the ills of a dominantly patriarchal society and drove change, she became an icon for women’s empowerment. She was appointed the Minister of Information and Communication between 2008 and 2010.
She died after a battle with cancer and is survived by her husband, six children and three grandchildren.
กรุณาคำนวณค่าใช้จ่ายโดยรวมถึงค่าเดินทางมายังกรุงเทพมหานคร ค่าที่พัก ค่าเบี้ยเลี้ยง ค่าวีซ่า ค่าสนับสนุนในการเข้าถึงต่างๆ และอื่นๆ ยังไม่รวมถึงค่าลงทะเบียนที่จะมีการประกาศเร็วๆนี้ โรงแรมในบริเวณสุขุมวิท กรุงเทพฯ มีราคาตั้งแต่ 1,700-6,800 บาทต่อคืน สำหรับการพักสองคน
โดยหากเป็นสมาชิก AWID จะได้รับส่วนลดค่าลงทะเบียน หากคุณยังไม่ได้เป็นสมาชิก เราขอเชิญชวนให้คุณสมัครสมาชิกและเข้าร่วมชุมชนเฟมินิสต์ระดับโลก
This calendar is a gift to our global feminist community. It is our promise of future connection and movement moments in the year to come. This past year has seen unspeakable injustices. We welcome a new year full of powerful movement spirit, of hopeful solutions and strategies. For a more just world for all.
As you flip through the pages note the diversity of art from our artist members who use their work to amplify and interlink our different movements under the feminist umbrella. Do you see yourself, your movement, your communities in these pages? We encourage you to use this calendar as a practical tool to mark time and space, but also to pencil in occasions to connect with feminists and activists.
This calendar invites us to immerse ourselves in the inspiring world of feminist artistry. Each month, as it gently unfolds, brings forth the vivid artwork of feminist and queer artists from our communities. Their creations are not mere images; they are profound narratives that resonate with the experiences of struggle, triumph, and undying courage that define our collective quest. These visual stories, bursting with color and emotion, serve to bridge distances and weave together our diverse experiences, bringing us closer in our shared missions.
"She was not a person. She was a power."
- a fellow activist remembering Navleen Kumar
With commitment and integrity, she worked for more than a decade to protect and restore the lands of Indigenous people (adivasi) in Thane district, an area taken away by property and land developers using such means as coercion and intimidation. She fought this injustice and crime through legal interventions at different courts, realizing that manipulation of land records was a recurrent feature in most cases of land acquisition. In one of the cases, that of the Wartha (a tribal family), Navleen found out that the family had been cheated with the complicity of government officials.
Through her work, she helped restore the land back to the Wartha family and continued to pursue other cases of adivasi land transfers.
“Her paper on the impact of land alienation on adivasi women and children traces the history and complexities of tribal alienation from the 1970s, when middle class families began to move to the extended suburbs of Mumbai as the real estate value in the city spiralled.
Housing complexes mushroomed in these suburbs, and the illiterate tribals paid the price for this. Prime land near the railway lines fetched a high price and builders swooped down on this belt like vultures, to grab land from tribals and other local residents by illegal means.”
-Jaya Menon, Justice and Peace Commission
During the course of her activism, Navleen received numerous threats and survived several attempts on her life. Despite these, she continued working on what was not only important to her but contributed to changing the lives and realities of many she supported in the struggle for social justice.
Navleen was stabbed to death on 19 June 2002 in her apartment building. Two local gangsters were arrested for her murder.
AWID ฟอรัม ตลอดมาเป็นพื้นที่ที่ไม่กลัวการสนทนาที่จำเป็น หรือหัวข้อที่ท้าทาย เรายินดีรับข้อเสนอเหล่านี้เมื่อผู้จัดกิจกรรมสามารถรักษาพื้นที่สำหรับผู้เข้าร่วมด้วยความเคารพ ปลอดภัย และอย่างระมัดระวัง
Diana Isabel Hernández Juárez was a Guatemalan teacher, human rights defender and environmental and community activist. She was the coordinator of the environmental program at Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish on the South coast of the country.
Diana dedicated her life to co-creating environmental awareness, working especially closely with local communities to address environmental issues and protect natural resources. She initiated projects such as forest nurseries, municipal farms, family gardens and clean-up campaigns. She was active in reforestation programmes, trying to recover native species and address water shortages, in more than 32 rural communities.
On 7 September 2019, Diana was shot and killed by two unknown gunmen while she was participating in a procession in her hometown. Diana was only 35 years old at the time of her death.
เราตระหนักดีถึงอุปสรรคในทางปฏิบัติและความทุกข์ทางอารมณ์ในการเดินทางระหว่างประเทศ โดยเฉพาะอย่างยิ่งจากซีกโลกใต้ โดย AWID กำลังทำงานร่วมกับ TCEB (สำนักงานส่งเสริมการจัดประชุมและนิทรรศการของประเทศไทย) เพื่อสนับสนุนผู้เข้าร่วมฟอรัมในการขอวีซ่า ข้อมูลอื่นๆเกี่ยวกับการขอวีซ่าจะถูกนำเสนอในช่วงที่เปิดให้ลงทะเบียน รวมถึงสถานที่และวิธีการขอวีซ่า
Mirna Teresa Suazo Martínez was part of the Garifuna (Afro-descendent and Indigenous) Masca community, living on the North Caribbean coast of Honduras. She was a community leader and a fervent defender of the Indigenous territory, a land that was violated when the National Agrarian Institute of Honduras gave territorial licenses to people outside of the community.
This deplorable deed resulted in repeated harassment, abuse and violence against the Masca, where economic interests of different groups met those of Honduran armed forces and authorities. According to the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH), the strategy of these groups is to evict and exterminate the Indigenous population.
“Masca, the Garifuna community located next to the Cuyamel Valley, is part of the area of influence of one of the supposed model cities, a situation that has triggered territorial pressures along the Garifuna coast.” - OFRANEH, 8 September 2019
Mirna Teresa, president of the Board of Trustees of the Masca Community in Omoa, was also firmly rejecting the construction of two hydroelectric plants on the river that carries the same name as her community, Masca.
“The Garífuna community attributes the worsening of the situation in their region to their opposition to tourist exploitation, the monoculture of African palm and drug trafficking, at the same time that it seeks to build an alternative life through the cultivation of coconut and other products for self-consumption.” - Voces Feministas, 10 September 2019
Mirna Teresa was murdered on 8 September 2019 in her Restaurant “Champa los Gemelos”.
She was one of six Garifuna women defenders murdered between September and October 2019 alone. According to OFRANEH, there was no investigation by the authorities into these crimes.
“In the case of the Garífuna communities, a large part of the homicides are related to land tenure and land management. However, squabbles between organized crime have resulted in murders, such as the recent ones in Santa Rosa de Aguán.” - OFRANEH, 8 September 2019
Through in-person events, lives on our socials, an exhibit booth and more; we are showing up to convene, amplify and support the voices and participation of our members, partners and allies.
Together we will Reclaim Feminist Power by uplifting feminist alternatives and visions around economies that center collective systems of care and nurture both the planet and people.
Follow us on social media for more details on how to participate! Be part of the conversations using the hashtags #AWIDatCSW68 and #ReclaimFeministPower.
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