This article is part of a series for the annual and global 16 Days of activism against gender-based violence published in collaboration with the Women Human Rights Defenders Middle East and North Africa (WHRDMENA) coalition as part of its #SheDefends yearly campaign. The articles reflect on the past, present and future of feminist movements and the meaning of global solidarity.
Today – 29 November – is an auspicious day. It’s the annual International Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRD) Day, which marks tenacious advocacy of WHRDs around the world. That recognition is good news. The bad news is that women human rights defenders have reason to be engaged in the Global South and North absolutely all the time – fighting for all human rights for all people. Our work encompasses a wide range of concerns: we demand rights to freedom of assembly, to be free from violence and discrimination, rights to health, to a clean environment and even the right to make these demands at all. We seek a world in which all human rights are realized by all people.
Also promising is the fact that there is an endless supply of us, with each generation producing new, creative defenders who seek justice, fairness, equity and an end to what seems like unyielding impunity and corruption. We WHRDs are fiercer than ever in developing our analysis of human rights concerns, in posing solutions for them, and in demanding accountability. We are busy, always. And we work at all levels, from the most local grassroots advocacy to the (not so) hallowed halls of the United Nations. We are effective in all of these spaces. However, times are hard, for sure, for advocacy generally and for WHRDs in particular.
