This article is part of an editorial partnership with the Fund for Global Human Rights.
Last year at least 321 human rights defenders, in 27 countries, were killed, and frontline activists are increasingly also the targets of digital attacks and state oppression . The impacts of these threats transcend the activists’ work, rippling out to create fear and anxiety in their daily lives, for their families and within their communities. This lack of wellbeing is as paralysing as insecurity can be. Given this, self-care becomes a precondition for social justice work, and so – as feminist activist and writer Audre Lorde famously said – an act of political warfare.
