Eight WLUML networkers from Sudan, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria headed to Geneva this month to take part in the two-week Human Rights Defenders Advocacy Programme hosted by the International Service for Human Rights. Under the Women’s Empowerment and Leadership Development for Democratisation (WELDD) programme, WLUML sent their networkers to join 12 other participants from around the world working on diverse issues such as indigenous and environmental rights, corporate responsibility, and LGBTI rights.

Due diligence for women's human rights: transgressing conventional lines

Jennifer Allsopp: Yakin, you were invited to Oxford to deliver the annual Barbara Harrell-Bond lecture at the Refugee Studies Centre. You stressed in your talk, and have repeatedly argued elsewhere, that violence against women is a human rights issue. Could you say something more about the relationship between violence against women and human rights?

Campaigners welcome 'milestone' agreement at UN gender equality talks

The Commission on the Status of Women agrees to stand-alone equality goal in post-2015 targets and issues strong language against violence

Liz Ford, Sunday 23rd March 2014

UN Member states have agreed that gender equality and women's rights must be prioritised in future discussions on what should be included in the next set of sustainable development goals.

خطة عمل وطنية: العراق - لتنفيذ قرار مجلس الأمن للأمم المتحدة رقم ١٣٢٥ بشأن المرأة والسلام والأمن ٢٠١٤- ٢٠١٨

Call for Action: Include women in the Syrian peace-building process now!

On 22 January 2014, the United Nations (UN)-backed Geneva II peace talks between the Syrian government and the opposition are scheduled to be held with the goal of ending the Syrian conflict and creating a transitional government. However, nearly 14 years after the landmark passage of UN Security Council resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325) calling on UN member states to “increase the participation of women and incorporate gender perspectives in all United Nations peace and security efforts,” no women have been included in the Syrian peace negotiations.

How to follow up on UN Human Rights Recommendations: A practical guide for civil society

What is follow-up and why is it important?

Follow-up activities aim at ensuring that recommendations and decisions by human rights mechanisms and bodies are implemented so as to

improve respect, protection and fulfilment of all human rights for all. UN human rights mechanisms and bodies seek to improve the

realization of human rights in all countries of the world. Resolutions adopted by the Human Rights Council, the findings of Commissions of

Inquiry, recommendations of treaty bodies, special procedures and the universal periodic review, and decisions of treaty bodies on individual

cases all aim at closing protection gaps and indicate ways for States and other stakeholders to advance towards the full realization of human

rights. All these findings, recommendations and decisions aim at producing a change for the better in the lives of rights-holders. The primary obligation to realize such change lies with States, which bear the duty to respect, protect and fulfil human rights. However, all parts of society, from individuals to the private sector, the international community and CSAs have a role to play in the realization of human rights. Civil society, in particular, can play a crucial role in following up on human rights recommendations.

Islam, Land, and Property: Muslim Women and Property

It is commonly assumed that Muslim women are frustrated in their pursuit of property rights because those rights are limited under the Islamic legal system, they lack agency in the face of oppressive family and social structures and have an absence of conviction in their articulation of gender rights.

GOVERNMENTS SHOULD SUPPORT STRONG INTERNATIONAL RESOLUTION ON WOMEN HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS

Governments should support an important international resolution on the situation and protection of women human rights defenders, the International Service for Human Rights said today.

DRAFT UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY RESOLUTION ON WOMEN HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS UNDER ATTACK!

As we speak, a resolution is being negotiated at the General Assembly in New York on the protection of women human rights defenders (WHRDs). This is the first time women defenders have been the focus of a draft resolution at the United Nations. Such an initiative is the result of activists’ work over many years raising awareness about the challenges, risks and attacks faced by women human rights defenders and their specific protection needs. The resolution would provide much needed recognition of WHRDs and their work, and would be an important tool in urging States to create enabling environments in which WHRDs can carry out their activities, free from intimidation, threats or attacks.

Harmful practices against women and girls can never be justified by religion – UN expert

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29 October 2013 – Harmful practices inflicted on women and girls can never be justified in the name of freedom of religion or belief, an independent United Nations human rights expert told a General Assembly committee dealing with social, humanitarian and cultural issues today.

“Countless women are exposed to complex forms of human rights violations based on both religion or belief and their sex,” said Heiner Bielefeldt, the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief.

The expert’s latest report, which he presented to the Third Committee, focused on two human rights, namely freedom of religion or belief and gender equality. “My main message is that there is much more room for synergies between those two rights than people generally assume,” he told reporters after his presentation.

“Often you find the assumption that, you go either for religion or for gender emancipation and you can’t really combine the two, which I would find not only wrong but dangerous.”

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