Defensoras de derechos humanos de todo el planeta defienden sus tierras, medios de subsistencia y sus comunidades ante las industrias extractivas y el poder corporativo. Ellas hacen frente a fuertes intereses económicos y políticos que promueven el robo de tierras, el desplazamiento de comunidades, la pérdida de los medios de subsistencia y la degradación del medioambiente.
El extractivismo es un modelo económico y político de desarrollo que mercantiliza la naturaleza y prioriza la ganancia por sobre los derechos humanos y el medioambiente. Arraigado en la historia colonial, refuerza las desigualdades sociales y económicas tanto a nivel local como global. Muchas veces, las mujeres negras, rurales e indígenas son las más afectadas por el extractivismo, y además son notablemente excluidas de la toma de decisiones. Desafiando estas fuerzas patriarcales y neocoloniales, las mujeres se alzan en defensa de los derechos, las tierras, las personas y la naturaleza.
Las defensoras que enfrentan a las industrias extractivas, experimentan una diversidad de riesgos, amenazas y violaciones, incluidas la criminalización, la estigmatización, la violencia y laintimidación. Sus historias dan cuenta de marcados aspectos de violencia sexual y de género. Entre los perpetradores se incluyen autoridades estatales y locales, las corporaciones, la policía, el ejército, las fuerzas paramilitares y de seguridad privada, y en algunos casos, sus propias comunidades.
AWID y la Coalición Internacional de Mujeres Defensoras de Derechos Humanos (WHRDIC por su sigla en inglés) tienen el placer de anunciar «Defensoras de derechos humanos confrontado al extractivismo y al poder corporativo»; un proyecto interregional de investigación que documenta las experiencias vividas por las defensoras de Asia, África y América Latina.
Alentamos a activistas, integrantes de movimientos sociales, la sociedad civil organizada, donantes y responsables de políticas públicas, a leer y utilizar estas producciones para el trabajo de incidencia, con fines educativos y como fuente de inspiración:
«Defensoras de derechos humanos confrontando a las industrias extractivas: un panorama de los riesgos críticos y las obligaciones en materia de derechos humanos» es un informe sobre políticas desde la perspectiva de género (en inglés, pronto disponible en español). Analiza las formas de violaciones y los tipos de perpetradores, hace referencia a las obligaciones relevantes en derechos humanos e incluye recomendaciones de políticas para los estados, corporaciones, la sociedad civil y donantes.
«Tejiendo la Resistencia a través de la Acción: Las Estrategias de las Defensoras de Derechos Humanos contra a las Industrias Extractivas» es una guía práctica que expone formas creativas y deliberadas de acción, tácticas exitosas e inspiradoras historias de resistencias.
El video «Defendiendo a las Personas y al Planeta: Mujeres Confrontando a las Industrias Extractivas» está protagonizado por defensoras de derechos humanos de África, Asia y América Latina, que comparten sus luchas por la tierra y la vida, y hablan de los riesgos y desafíos que enfrentan en su activismo.
«Desafiar al poder corporativo: Las luchas por los derechos de las mujeres, la justicia económica y de género» es un informe de investigación que explica los impactos del poder corporativo y ofrece ideas sobre estrategias de resistencia.
AWID reconoce con gratitud las invaluables contribuciones de cada Defensora de Derechos Humanos que ha sido parte de este proyecto. Esta guía ha sido posible gracias su generosidad y apertura al compartir sobre sus experiencias y lecciones. Su coraje, creatividad y resiliencia son una inspiración para todxs nosotrxs. ¡Muchas gracias!
أكيد. سيتم محي اجوبتك بعد عملية معالجة المعطيات وتحليلها وسيتم استعمالها لأهداف بحثية فقط. لن تتم أبداً مشاركة المعطيات خارج AWID وسيتم معالجتها فقط عن طريق طاقم AWID والمستشارات/ين اللواتي/ اللذين يعملن/وا في مشروع "أين المال" معنا. خصوصيتكم/ن وسرّيتكم/ن هي في أعلى سلم أولوياتنا. سياسة الخصوصية متواجدة هنا.
Inna is a feminist queer activist and sociologist with many years of deep engagement in feminist and LGBTQI+ struggles, political education and organizing by and for migrant women, and Palestine liberation and solidarity. She joined AWID in 2016 and served in different roles, most recently as Director of Programs. She is based in Berlin, Germany, grew up in Haifa, Palestine/Israel, was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and carries these political geographies and resistance to colonial past and present into her feminism and transnational solidarity.
Inna is the author of “Women's Economic Empowerment: Feminism, Neoliberalism, and the State” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), based on the dissertation which earned her a doctoral degree from the Humboldt University of Berlin. As an academic, she taught courses on globalization, knowledge production, identity and belonging. Inna holds an MA in Cultural Studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is a Board Member of the Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East (Germany), and previously of +972 Advancement of Citizen Journalism. Previously Inna worked with the Coalition of Women for Peace and she is passionate about mobilizing resources for grassroots activism.
Comparte tus historias y conoce las de otrxs. Al conectar nuestras experiencias, relatos y propuestas ayudamos a crear en conjunto y amplificar las Realidades Feministas.
Described by the Guardian as one of Kiribati’s national icons, Teresia was a fearless advocate who worked closely with feminist groups in Fiji.
She used her research to address the issues of feminism and gender in the Pacific, as well as being co-editor of the International feminist Journal of Politics. Her influence spanned the academic frontier as well as social justice movements in the Oceania region.
When you do a search for “Female Genital Mutilation” or “FGM” online, an image of four line-drawings of the female anatomy pop up next to its Wikipedia entry. It illustrates four types of violence. The first being a partial cut to the clitoris. The second, a more invasive cut with the entire clitoris removed. The third is progressively worse with the removal of the clitoris, labia majora and minora. And the fourth box illustrates a series of hash marks to symbolize stitches over the vaginal opening to allow only for urination and menstruation.
As a survivor of FGM, most questions about my story fixate on the physical. The first question I usually get asked is what type of FGM I underwent. When I told a journalist once that I went through Type 1, she said “oh, that’s not so bad. It’s not like type three which is far worse.” She was technically right. I had the least invasive form. And for many years, I gaslighted myself into feeling a sense of relief that I was one of the lucky ones. I comforted myself noting that I could have been less fortunate with all of my genitalia gouged out, not just the clitoral tip. Or worse I could have been one of the ones who didn’t survive at all. Like Nada Hassan Abdel-Maqsoud, a twelve year old, who bled to death on a doctor’s operating table earlier this year in Upper Egypt. Nada is a reminder to me that for every data point -- 200 million women and girls who live with the consequences of FGM globally -- there is a story. Nada will never be able to tell hers.
As much as I find the label “survivor” suffocating at times -- I also realize there is privilege embedded in the word. By surviving, you are alive. You have the ability to tell your story, process the trauma, activate others in your community and gain insights and a new language and lens to see yourself through.
The act of storytelling can be cathartic and liberating, but it can also shatter the storyteller in the process.
Without integrating the psychosocial support of trained clinicians into storytelling and healing retreats, well-intentioned interventions can result in more trauma. This is all the more important as FGM survivors navigate the double pandemic of their own PTSD from childhood trauma, and the indefinite COVID-19 global shutdown.
In many anti-FGM advocacy spaces, I have seen this insatiable hunger to unearth stories -- whatever the cost to the storyteller. The stories help activate funding and serve as a data point
for measuring impact.
Survivor stories then become commodities fueling a storytelling industrial complex. Storytellers, if not provided proper mental health support in the process, can become collateral damage.
My motivation in writing this piece is to flip the script on how we view FGM survivors, prioritizing the storyteller over the story itself.
FGM survivors are more than the four boxes describing how the pieces of our anatomy were cut, pricked, carved, or gouged out. In this essay, I’ll break down the anatomy of an FGM survivor’s story into four parts: stories that break, stories that remake, stories that heal, and stories that reveal.
I was sitting in the heart of Appalachia with a group of FGM survivors, meeting many for the first time. As they shared their traumas, I realized we all belonged in some way or another to the same unenviable club. A white Christian survivor from Kentucky - who I don’t think I would have ever met if we didn’t have FGM survivorship connecting us - told the contours of her story.
There were so many parallels. We were both cut at seven. She was bribed with cake after her cut. I was bribed with a jumbo-sized Toblerone chocolate bar when mine was over. Absorbing her trauma overwhelmed me. And I imagine when I shared my story, others in the circle may also have been silently unraveling. We didn’t have a clinician or mental health professional in a facilitation role and that absence was felt. The first night, I was sharing a room with six other survivors and tried hard to keep the sounds of my own tears muffled. By the last day, I reached breaking point. Before leaving for the airport, my stomach contracted and I convulsively vomited. I felt like I was purging not only my pain, but the pain of the others I’d absorbed that week. We all dutifully produced our stories into 90 second social media friendly soundbites with narration and photos. But at what cost?
On February 6, 2016, the Guardian published my story as a survivor. The second it was released, I was remade. My identity transformed from nondescript, relatively invisible mid-level Foreign Service Officer to FGM survivor under a public microscope. That same day, then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power tweeted my story with the introduction: “I was seven years old” before linking to the article. The tweet symbolized a moment for me where my personal and professional worlds collided. Since then, they have been forever intertwined.
Even though I spent ten years of my career as a diplomat focused on other issues -- I lived in Cairo during the early days of the Arab Spring in 2011 and served in Baghdad and Erbil when the Syrian revolution turned from an uprising to civil war -- all of those past experiences that began to make mefeel erased. When I spoke on panels, my identity would be reduced to “survivor.” Like other survivors, I have worked hard to rewrite the script on how others see me.
I reinsert pieces of my other identities when speaking to underscore to the broader public that while yes, I am a survivor of childhood trauma and while my FGM story may have remade a part of my identity, it doesn’t define me.
With the guidance of a mental health expert, I have spent the last few months doing a deep dive into my FGM survivor story. I have told and retold my story over dozens of times in public venues. My goal is to break the culture of silence and inspire action. At this point, the telling of my story has almost become mechanized, as though I am reciting a verse from the Quran I memorized as a kid. I would always start with: “I was sitting an anthropology class when a fellow student described her research project on Female Genital Mutilation. And that’s when I had the memory jolt. A memory I had suppressed since childhood came flooding to the foreground.” I go into the details of what happened in granular detail -- the color of the floor, the feelings of confusion and betrayal in the hazy aftermath. And then I go on to talk about the afternoon I confronted my mother about the summer she and my father shipped my brother and off to India to stay with my aunt. The summer it happened. I later found out my aunt cut me without my parents’ consent. In my years of telling and retelling this story, I would have moments I felt nothing, moments I would break down, and moments of relief. It was a mixed bag, often contradictory emotions happening all at once.
When I began to take apart the story, I discovered the core moment where I felt most gutted. It wasn’t the cut itself. It was the aftermath. I remember sitting in a corner alone, feeling confused and ashamed. When I looked at my aunt on the other side of the room, she was whispering to my cousin and they both pointed and laughed at me. Unearthing the moment of shame - the laughter - has haunted me since childhood. The piece that was carved out of me is called “haram ki boti” which translates into sinful flesh. Over time, the physical scar healed. But for many FGM survivors, the psychological wounds remain
Last year, I decided to take a sabbatical from the Foreign Service. I was burning out on both ends -- I had just completed a really tough assignment in Pakistan and was also doing anti-FGM
advocacy in my personal capacity. When I came home, an acquaintance from graduate school approached me to capture my story on film. As part of the process, she would send a camera
crew to shadow me. Sometimes while giving speeches, other times filming mundane interactions with friends and family. On a visit to my home in Texas, I’ll never forget the moment where my mom told me her story of survival. As part of the film, we went on a roadtrip to Austin to visit the university where I first had the memory jolt. My mom is patiently waiting for the cameraman to set up his tripod. My father is standing next to her.
In the end, we eventually had the conversation I never had the courage to have with either of my parents face to face. Looking them both in the eye, retelling my story with a camera as witness, we discussed how FGM ripped our family apart (specifically my dad’s relationship with his sister). For the first time, I heard my mom talking about her own experience and the feeling of betrayal when she discovered my aunt cut me without her consent. When I later told her that FGM was actually indigenous to the U.S. and Europe and that it was a cure for hysteria (prescribed by doctors) up until the 19th century, my mother exclaimed “that’s crazy to me, this was a cure for hysteria. I’m going to educate other doctors to speak out.” And in that moment, my mother, a survivor who had never shared her story before, became an activist.
My story, intertwined with her story, revealed a tightly woven fabric of resistance. With our voices, we were able to break the cycle of intergenerational structural violence. We were able to rewrite the stories of future generations of girls in our own family and hopefully one day, the world.
This is a woman breaking free from her mundane reality, devoid of color. She dreams in a colorful, "nonsensical" way that people in her life would not understand. She could be considered insane, yet her dreams are more vivid and imaginative than actual life. This is frequently how schizophrenia occurs to me, more engaging and exciting than real life.
< United against the violence, by Karina Ocampo
Freeing the Church, Decolonizing the Bible for West Papuan Women, by Rode Wanimbo >
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Dr. Margo Okazawa-Rey ocupa la Cátedra Distinguida Barbara Lee en Liderazgo de Mujeres y es Profesora visitante de Estudios de Mujeres, Género y Sexualidad, y de Políticas Públicas en Mills College, en Oakland, California. También es Profesora Emérita en la Universidad Estatal de San Francisco.
Sus principales áreas de investigación y activismo durante los últimos 25 años han sido el militarismo, los conflictos armados y la violencia contra las mujeres, examinados de manera interseccional. La profesora Okazawa-Rey participa en el Consejo Consultivo Internacional de Du Re Bang en Uijongbu, Corea del Sur; en la Junta Internacional de Mujeres de Paz en el Mundo (PeaceWomen Across the Globe) en Berna, Suiza; y es co-presidente de la Junta del Centro Highlander para la Investigación y Educación en New Market, Tennessee, EE. UU.
Sus publicaciones recientes incluyen “Nation-izing” Coalition and Solidarity Politics for US Anti-militarist Feminists [«Coalición “nacio-nalizadora” y políticas de solidaridad para las feministas antimilitaristas de EE. UU.»], en prensa; “No Freedom without Connections: Envisioning Sustainable Feminist Solidarities” [«No hay libertad sin conexiones: contemplando solidaridad feminista sostenible»] (2018) in Feminist Freedom Warriors: Genealogies, Justice, Politics, and Hope [«Guerreras feministas por la libertad: genealogías, justicia, política y esperanza»], Chandra Talpade Mohanty and Linda Carty (eds.); Between a Rock and Hard Place: Southeast Asian Women Confront Extractivism, Militarism, and Religious Fundamentalisms [«Entre la espada y la pared: Las mujeres del sudeste asiático enfrentan el extractivismo, el militarismo y los fundamentalismos religiosos»] (2018); “Liberal Arts Colleges Partnering with Highlander Research and Education Center: Intergenerational Learning for Student Campus Activism and Personal Transformation,” Feminist Formations Special Issue on Feminist Social Justice Pedagogy (2018) [«Las universidades de artes liberales se asocian con el Centro Highlander para la Investigación y Educación: aprendizaje intergeneracional para el activismo estudiantil y la transformación personal», número especial de Formaciones Feministas sobre pedagogía de la justicia social feminista]
Syndicat OTRAS
nous estimons que pour être transformateurs et forts, les mouvements féministes doivent continuer à travailler au-delà de leurs similitudes et de leurs différences. Nous devons également interroger le pouvoir et les privilèges, tant au sein qu'à l'extérieur de nos mouvements.
Stella comenzó su carrera en el Ministerio de Género y Desarrollo Comunitario en Uganda colaborando con lxs legisladores en reformas legales, incluida la Constitución de Uganda de 1995, que estableció algunas de las reformas más progresistas para las mujeres en la región.
Stella es respetada y admirada en toda la región por sus incansables esfuerzos para crear y hacer cumplir leyes y políticas que tomen en cuenta cuestiones de género. También desempeñó un papel clave en la redacción de la Ley de Violencia Doméstica de Uganda y en la movilización de apoyo para las constituciones sensibles al género tanto en Uganda como en Ruanda.
A través de su trabajo con el Centro Internacional para la Investigación sobre la Mujer (ICRW, por sus siglas en inglés), abordó la violencia contra lxs niñxs y trabajó para fortalecer las capacidades de las organizaciones de base que abordan la violencia de género. Stella fue profesora en cursos sobre derechos de género y la ley, en la Universidad Makerere, y formó parte de las juntas directivas de Akina Mama wa Afrika, ActionAid International Uganda y Open Society Initiative para África Oriental.
Welcome to Crear | Résister | Transform: a festival for feminist movements!
AWID is committed to creating an online space that invites and challenges us all to operate from a place of courage, curiosity, generosity and shared responsibility.
We invite you to co-create spaces with us that are free of harassment and violence, where everyone is respected in their gender identity and expression, race, ability, class, religion, language, ethnicity, age, occupation, type of education, sexuality, body size, and physical appearance. Spaces where we recognize inequalities in our world and strive to transform them in our own interactions with each other.
This means that we are able to listen, understand and relate to each other. To feel close, in spite of it all being virtual. For this, we will make interpretation available and open channels (like chat and other tools) for you to react and share. To hear each other better, we invite you to wear headphones during the conversation. If it is possible for you , we suggest that you close your email and any other likely source of distraction while you are in the conversation.
Let us celebrate the multiple ways in which knowledge shows up in our lives. We invite you to approach the conversation with curiosity and openness to learn from others, allowing ourselves to unlearn and relearn through the exchange, as a way to start collectively building knowledge.
We are committed to holistically approaching accessibility by being mindful of different physical, language, mental and safety needs. We want a space that is welcoming of folks from various backgrounds, beliefs, abilities and experiences. We will be proactive but we also ask that you communicate your needs with us, and we will do our best within our capacity to address these needs.
We all commit individually and collectively to respect each other’s privacy and to seek people’s consent before sharing any images or content generated during the conversation that involves them.
Creating a safer, respectful and enjoyable environment for the conversations, is everybody's responsibility.
If you notice that someone is behaving in a discriminatory or offensive manner, please contact the reference person who will be indicated at the beginning of the session.
Any participants that express oppressive language or images, will be removed from the call and will not be readmitted. We will not engage with them in any way.
Building on our 20-year history of mobilizing more and better funding for feminist-led social change, AWID invites you to complete the new iteration of our flagship survey, WITM.
Claudia est Professeure en Egalité et équité pour le développement, psychologue féministe, activiste en faveur de la défense des droits humains depuis 30 ans et des droits des femmes depuis 24 ans.
Claudia, qui travaille au Salvador, est co-fondatrice et directrice générale de l’association Mujeres Transformando, et défend depuis 16 ans les droits du travail des travailleuses du secteur des maquiladoras textiles et de l’habillement. Elle a collaboré à la formulation d’initiatives législatives, à des propositions de politiques publiques et de recherches visant à améliorer la qualité de l’emploi pour les femmes travaillant dans ce secteur, en plus de travailler sans relâche au renforcement de l’organisation et de l’autonomisation des ouvrières des maquiladoras textiles et des couturières à domicile.
Elle participe activement à des actions de plaidoyer à l’échelle nationale, régionale et internationale pour la défense et la revendication des droits du travail de la classe ouvrière du Sud mondial d’un point de vue féministe, anticapitaliste, anti-patriarcal et dans une perspective de prise de conscience de la classe et du genre. Elle fait partie du Conseil d'administration de l'Initiative Spotlight et du Groupe national de référence de cette dernière. Elle fait également partie du Groupe consultatif de la société civile de l'ONU Femmes.
"I participated in a member-only activity and I was particularly moved to see how there was space for everyone to share and that there was no judgment whatsoever. The entire session was energetic and vibrant."
- Kirthi Jayakumar, Founder, The Gender Security Project, India
Ayant co-fondé le réseau Red de Mujeres Ixiles de Nebaj, une organisation de défense des droits des femmes autochtones, membre de l’Initiative mésoaméricaine des femmes défenseur-e-s des droits humains (IM-Defensoras en espagnol), Juana était actuellement membre de son conseil d’administration.
Elle était également sage-femme et mère de 7 enfants. Juana avait reçu des menaces de mort qui avaient été signalées au bureau du procureur. Juana est la troisième défenseure autochtone assassinée dans la région en 2018. L'Ombudsman pour le Guatemala a signalé qu'au total 20 défenseur-e-s ont été tué-e-s dans le pays cette année.
Juana Ramírez Santiago a été abattue par des assaillants non identifiés alors qu'elle traversait un pont à Nebak, Quiché, au Guatemala. Les enquêtes visant à identifier les auteurs sont en cours.
