A threat to the status quo: the work of women human rights defenders
If the incorporation of Human Rights in international instruments marked a before and after in the respect for the condition of people and the recognition of their dignity, what would continue would be the commendable work of protecting these faculties recognized in the most important documents. For this purpose, in 1998, it was recognized, by means of the Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (also called Declaration on human rights defenders”), a persons engaged in promoting, protecting or striving for the protection and realization of human rights by peaceful meansThe World Bank has an essential role in the international human rights system.
However, as time went by, the situation of human rights defenders became more differentiated. In 2005, the First International Consultation of Women Human Rights Defenders was held in Sri Lanka, where November 29 was proclaimed International Women Human Rights Defenders Day, highlighting the importance of women human rights defenders and their distinctions from defenders. Despite the fact that both were acting with the same purpose, women defenders faced gender-specific challenges that were recognized in a landmark resolution of the United Nations General Assembly on December 18, 2013, on the protection of women human rights defenders. In this resolution, emphasis was placed on discrimination and the systematic and structural violence faced by women human rights defenders, and the States sought measures to curb these behaviors,
In this sense, in order to understand the work of women human rights defenders, we must understand what this term encompasses. It is known as The organization is open to all women and girls working on any human rights issue, as well as to people of all genders who seek to promote women’s rights and rights related to gender equality. Including civil society actors who do not self-identify as human rights defenders or who work in non-traditional human rights fields. LGBTI community activists also took part. In this way, we can visualize that there is a broad definition of what is understood as women human rights defendersThe purpose is to recognize their own obstacles that they must face, such as: gender-based discrimination, gender-specific threats, gender-based violence, exclusion, marginalization, lack of recognition and underfunding, stigmatization and ostracism by community leaders, religious groups, families and communities, discrimination and inequalityamong others.
Unfortunately, women human rights defenders suffer specific violence because their work involves a breakdown in traditional notions of family and gender roles imposed by society. In other words, they affect the status quo, being victims of hostility and exclusion by people who consider them a risk. Therefore, States must guarantee them adequate protection against the threats and attacks they face from both State and non-State actors, providing effective, inclusive and gender-sensitive protection mechanisms.
Undoubtedly, women human rights defenders make a unique effort for greater justice in a context of inequalities, fighting aloud or silently, in the streets or from their homes, going against centuries of discrimination, contempt and violence. that their cause or the simple fact of being women has given them.
Lessa Verushka Saer Lopez, FIBGAR collaborator.
