International Consultation on Women Human Rights Defenders is a success
8 December 2005 Nearly 200 women’s rights and human rights defenders from approximately 70 countries worldwide gathered from 29 November to 2 December in Colombo, Sri Lanka, to hold an historic global gathering on women human rights defenders. The consultation was attended by the First Lady of Sri Lanka, Shiranthi Rajapakse, and opened with a welcome address by Nimalka Fernando, from the Women’s Alliance for Peace and Democracy in Sri Lanka.
Front Line sponsored a two-day workshop for selected Women Human Rights Defenders immediately prior to the International Consultation. The workshop was led by Cecilia Jimenez and sought to develop appropriate methodology and resource materials for addressing the specific needs of women human rights defenders. The workshop drew heavily on the input from the participants and considered a number of case studies.
The consultation meeting highlighted experiences of women who defend a range of human rights issues, as well as women and men around the globe who defend the human rights of women. The consultation focused on the challenges faced by women human rights defenders in their political organizing – challenges that are often targeted at and specific to women precisely because of their sex and gender. Abuses include violence, harassment and intimidation, and can take the form of rape, forced psychiatric treatment and attacks designed to discredit defenders’ reputations. The gathering marks the first time women’s rights and human rights groups have come together on a global level to address gender-specific concerns and experiences of women as human rights defenders.
Conference participants addressed specific risks and violations women around the world face in their work in defence of human rights, whether that work explicitly focuses on women’s rights or not. Women defenders face specific challenges as women in a climate increasingly hostile to the work of political activists in various social movements and regions. As women, they face some of the same abuses all defenders do, yet they are also exposed to or targeted for gender-based violence and gender-specific risks.
In her keynote speech, Hina Jilani, the UN Special Representative to the Secretary General on Human Rights Defenders, spoke of an urgent need to identify and consider the special issues faced by women working in the human rights field in order to ensure that their important part in the struggle for universal human rights is fully recognized and valued. She noted that women human rights defenders are particularly vulnerable to attack because they often defy cultural norms of gender, heterosexuality and femininity in their identities and in the course of their advocacy. She pointed out that in addition to formal state structures, groups, including religious movements, local communities and families are often responsible for these violations, and that it is vital for human rights strategies to take these actors into account.
Mary Jane Real from the Secretariat of the consultation’s coordinating committee said:“Over the past four days women human rights defenders have shared a wide range of experiences, and worked to seek responses to the abuses we face. From policies and practices that regulate women’s sexuality, to restrictions on our work because of misuse of counter-terrorism efforts, we have outlined the nature and depth of these violations as they apply to all of us. And we have identified and discussed campaigning strategies that are available to help us put an end to the abuse of women human rights defenders worldwide in the course of our activism.”
The gathering was linked to an international campaign launched in 2004 entitled “Defending Women Defending Rights: the International Campaign on Women Human Rights Defenders (ICWHRD). ICWHRD is an international initiative for the recognition and protection of women activists who advocate the realization of human rights for all people. Formed as a coalition of women’s rights and human rights organizations, the Campaign is rooted in overwhelming evidence that many women who are active in different aspects of human rights work routinely face harassment, abuse, violence, discrimination and marginalization because of their gender, sexual identity and their advocacy.
The Defending Women Defending Rights Campaign is sponsored by the following organizations: Amnesty International, Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development, Asia Pacific Forum on Women’s Law and Development, Center for Women’s Global Leadership, Front Line, Information Monitor (INFORM), International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, International Service for Human Rights, ISIS Women’s International Cross-Cultural Exchange, Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Women’s Rights, Women Living Under Muslim Laws, and the World Organization Against Torture.