WUNRN
WOMEN HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS
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WOMEN
NEWS NETWORK
VIDEO:
ZAKIA ZAKI - SLAIN AFGHAN JOURNALIST
Journalist, Zakia Zaki, 35, was one of the most prominent radio journalists in Afghanistan. She was an outspoken advocate for women's rights and media education for women in Afghanistan. She ran the radio network "Radio Peace." On June 6, 2007 Zakia was brutally slain by assassins who entered her home in the town of Jabal as Siraj, about 70km (40 miles) north of Kabul. This short video is a portrait of Zakia Zaki's work and life (also showing an interview Zakia made with Afghan parliamentarian, Malalai Joya). Video produced by NGO Aina (ainaworld.org). 9:59 min. June 7, 2007 release.
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Contextualising
the International Campaign on Women Human Rights Defenders
The Campaign
The International Campaign on Women Human Rights Defenders is an international
initiative for the recognition and protection of women who are activists
advocating for the realization of all human rights for all. The campaign
asserts that women fighting for human rights and particularly focusing on
women's human rights face specific violations in the course of their work
because of their sex and gender. In addition, the Campaign focuses on the
situation of human rights activists defending women’s rights and in particular
calls attention to the violations experienced by lesbian, gay, bisxeual,
transgender and other rights activists on grounds of their sex and gender
identities. The identities of these actors as well as the nature of the
rights they strive to uphold are both factors that make them the focus of the
Campaign.
The Campaign aims to support the critical role played by human rights defenders all over the world in the promotion and protection of all human rights for all through expanding the ambit of understanding of this concept to include specific defenders and groups of defenders that are at risk because of their sex/gender identity. This has become all the more important in the present global context in which the space for human rights advocacy by civil society actors is shrinking in the context of the US-led 'wars' against terrorism and rising fundamentalisms.
The Campaign, which emerges out of a process of coalition building between women's rights organizations and human rights organizations, brings together a wide range of experiences and histories of defending human rights. It looks at issues of impunity and accountability of the State as well as accountability of a range of non-State actors for violations against women human rights defenders. It focuses on developing collective analytical and political strategies for strengthening the defense of women human rights defenders within a broader context of reaffirming internationally recognized commitments to democratic principles and universal human rights and freedoms.
The Campaign has identified four core calls:
The historical background:
History is replete with accounts of countless men and women worldwide who have been subjected to discrimination, abuse and violence in the course of their activism in advocating and defending their own rights as well as the rights of others. Many have paid with their lives for their courage and commitment to the defense of human rights, and yet their lives, and deaths, have often gone unrecognized. While it is true that existing legal structures can be drawn upon to protect individuals and groups of individuals from violations of their rights by states and by other specified actors, our experiences show that many activists do not enjoy the protection they are entitled to, by law. The demand for better legal frameworks and heightened social awareness for the protection and security of human rights defenders has emerged out of this context.
Throughout the campaign, women human rights defenders have shared their concerns with the Campaign Team at a series of consultations and meetings. The information they have shared has led to a more nuanced understanding of the specific violations and abuses they face and the need to develop protection mechanisms that are responsive to the threats and risks they encounter as women human rights defenders. The campaign has also brought women’s rights groups and human rights organisations to work together, through joint actions and activities, to address these concerns raised by women human rights defenders. Together, they have responded to specific instances of abuse and violation of women human rights defenders through Action Alerts and other tools used by women’s human rights groups and human rights groups looking at violations against human rights defenders. The team has also been working collectively to draw attention to the lack of legitimacy given to women as human rights defenders, which accounts for the lack of protection accorded to them in their work.
The Declaration on Human Rights Defenders
In 1998, the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. This marks the first international recognition afforded to human rights defenders, and the first overt commitment by the international community and by the states that are members of the United Nations to the defense of the rights of those who strive to defend human rights. It is a document adopted by consensus and as such represents broad-based recognition of the importance to protect human rights defenders and promote their work. It does not create new rights, but speaks to the applicability of existing human rights norms and standards to the specific needs of human rights defenders. While the Declaration is not in itself a legally binding instrument, it contains a series of principles and rights that are based on human rights standards enshrined in other legally binding international instruments such as the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Above and beyond its legal validity, the Declaration gives due recognition to the status of human rights defenders and reinforces the legitimacy of their work. It also lays out the basis on which human rights defenders can seek redress for the violations committed against them.
The creation of the position of Special Representative (SR) of the UN Secretary General on Human Rights Defenders in 1999 and the mandating of this SR to make an annual report to the UN Commission on Human Rights on the situation of human rights defenders worldwide further strengthened the discourse on human rights defenders and their needs for recognition and protection.
The Declaration and the mandate of the SR on HRDs refer broadly to the rights and responsibilities of states and other actors with regard to the recognition and protection of human rights defenders. While the language does not focus particularly on any specific group of defenders, it allows for the broadest possible interpretation of the term. In her reports to the UN Commission of Human Rights, Hina Jilani, the Pakistani human rights advocate who is presently the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General on the issue of Human Rights Defenders, has singled out the specific situation of women who are actively engaged in the defense of human rights.
Why a special focus on women human rights defenders?
Within the arena of human rights activism, winning recognition for women's rights as human rights was a hard won battle, fought on many fronts for many years. Challenging the assumption that the term 'human rights' was by definition applicable to all human beings equally, without consideration of the various differences that exist among human beings on the basis of race, ethnicity, economic or educational status, sex or gender identity, age or ability, and without consideration of the diverse relationships of power among and between human beings because of these differences was not an easy task in itself.
Within the patriarchal and male dominated social formations that exist all over the world, arguing for equality for women has been even more difficult. Women who speak out for their rights, for the rights of other women and for the rights of other communities that suffer from discrimination and marginalization, experience harassment, abuse and violence on a daily basis because of what they dare to do.
Issues of women’s rights and, now, of women human rights defenders, are especially troublesome to states, non-state actors and even mainstream human rights organizations and progressive social movements because of the challenges posed to existing norms and social frameworks. Engendering human rights most critically entails giving life to the principle that the personal is political. The call for gender mainstreaming demands that we pay attention to unequal relations of power within all structures and organizational frameworks, including our own.
The high ‘risk’ factor
Women human rights defenders in the course of their work experience human rights violations on multiple grounds. As human rights defenders, they face the same gamut of risks faced by all human rights defenders, when they challenge repressive state machinery, for example, or when they raise demands for freedom of opinion and expression from authoritarian states. As women they are also exposed to or targeted for gender-based violence and gender-specific risks. Recognition of the specific risks and the specific violations women face in their work in defense of human rights because of their sex or gender identity is crucial, especially in a broader context in which women's equality and dignity is denied and in which the violent suppression of women's autonomy and rights is endemic in every society.
Women throughout the world who work for the protection and promotion not only of women’s rights, but also of human rights in general, are placed at risk by social norms and assumptions about women's primary role as being located within the private/domestic sphere. The isolation and silencing of women imposed by patriarchal structures play a critical role in making women more at risk to abuse and violations. Anyone who works with women and girls who are victims of domestic or sexual violence knows the many obstacles that prevent women from speaking out about the indignities and abuse they face on a daily basis. The culture of blaming the victims of sexual violence for their victimhood is a key factor that places constraints on women, and those around them, from reporting these abuses.
Social norms and traditional and customary practices that construct women as
symbols of family and community ‘honour’ also make women responsible for
protecting their community’s honour and justify severe and inhuman punishments
for women who transgress the boundaries of behaviour laid out and ascribed by
male-dominated religious and cultural authorities. This makes it hard for women
human rights defenders to report or even articulate the existence of violence
against women committed by members of their own political or ethnic
group. Masculinist constructions of power, embedded in the State and
reflected in families and communities, consider it unpatriotic and traitorous
of women activists to point to perpetrators of violence from among members of
the family or colleagues in the movements. Women who speak out and act in
defense of their own rights as well as of the rights of other socially
marginalized groups are rendered most at risk of attack and abuse. These
interlocking networks of silence and ‘shame’ reinforce a culture of impunity
for crimes against women. This in turn heightens the risk of women activists to
violations of their rights and impedes their enjoyment of the full benefits of
their citizenship.
Women and other activists who actively promote women's rights in arenas such as
land rights, the right to inheritance, reproductive rights and sexual rights
and who pose a challenge to tradition, culture and customary practices through
their work are also often at the receiving end of a range of attacks and abuses.
The manipulative use of culture, tradition, custom and religion by conservative
and right-wing forces to justify human rights abuses of women makes the task of
women human rights defenders working for the protection and promotion of
women’s rights in these arenas most complex and difficult. Promoting and
protecting rights located within these arenas can lead to additional risks for
women activists, since the assertion of such rights is seen as disruptive of
cultural values and traditions. Activism for women’s human rights that
challenges patriarchal and hetero-normative social forms places women’s human
rights defenders at risk, not only of physical abuse and violence but also
makes them vulnerable to being ostracized by the community and society as a
whole on allegations of being witches, apostates and heretics.
Of particular concern in the discussions on women human rights defenders is ‘sexuality-baiting’, a term broadly used to encompass a range of practices that manipulate attitudes and prejudices about women’s sexuality to intimidate, humiliate, embarrass, stifle or discourage women from organizing around, or addressing issues of sexuality, sexual and other human rights. Sexuality-baiting against women human rights defenders can take many forms: women activists are labeled lesbians, sexually promiscuous deviants, anti-God, anti-religion; they are accused of promoting ‘Western’ or ‘alien’ cultures, and seen as responsible for the break-up of families. These labels are meant to denigrate the importance of their work. It discredits women’s motives for engaging in human rights work.
In addition, sexuality-baiting gives rise to situations that often have grave consequences for women. Such consequences include dismissals or forced resignation from employment and from holding office, dispossession of home and children, expulsion from the community, forced exile or migration. Women who demand accountability and criminalization of marital rape, for example, women who critique the patriarchal forms and nature of the monogamous nuclear family, or women who challenge heteronormativity – the imposition of the heterosexual norm – are often subject to attack and vilification, including criminal and religious penalties in some countries. Accusations of being ‘bad’ women and negligent mothers abound; comparable standards cannot be found for men engaged in public life and involved in the defense of human rights.
Public attacks against women human rights defenders often result in imposing restrictions on their freedom of speech, expression and assembly, and in challenging the legal standing of their organizations. Sexuality is manipulated not only to attack lesbians, gays and other activists working on sexual rights, but also to discredit any other political agenda espoused by women’s activists. In many instances, confronted with these hostile and sometimes violent responses, activists themselves take a conscious decision to tone down their political agendas or, for example, not to take on sexuality-related rights abuses for fear of retribution. This type of self-censorship and internalization of fear becomes so ingrained that breaking the barriers of silence becomes difficult even when the political and social climates are more favourable for these issues to be raised.
Given this broad context, therefore, the term 'women human rights defenders' encompasses both women active in human rights defense who are targeted for who they are as well as all those active in the defense of women's rights who are targeted for what they do.
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