WUNRN
WOMEN HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS CONCEPT
PAPERS
27
June 2012
Executive Summary-
The Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRD) program is issuing a series of concept
papers that aim to introduce the notion of WHRDs: who they are, what they do,
and why they should be considered as a distinct group of human rights
defenders. The categories of WHRDs analyzed in the concept papers include:
vocational women (doctors, nurses, and teachers); students; political
candidates; civil society activists; protesters; and workers (industrial and
agrarian sectors). The focus on WHRDs dos not aim at setting WHRDs as a
separate category, but to highlight the risks and challenges they face because
of their gender so as to develop responsive strategies.
The main international instrument on human rights defenders is the United
Nations Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and
Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights
and Fundamental Freedoms, commonly known as the Declaration on Human Rights
Defenders. According to Article 1 of the Declaration, a human rights defender
is any person “who promotes and strives for the protection and realization of
human rights and fundamental freedoms.” Such a broad categorization was
employed in order to avoid exclusion, including instead everyone who advocates
for human rights. WHRDs adhere to the definition of human rights
defenders above. In addition, the international campaign on women human rights
defenders defines them as women “active in human rights defense who are
targeted for who they are and all those active in the defense of women’s rights
who are targeted for what they do.”
The concept papers emphasized the fact that although the activities that the
latter categories of women engage in in the defense of human rights vary, they
are all targeted for who they are and what they do. In the case of workers such
as Amal al-Saed, for example, she was beaten and sexually harassed, stripped of
her headscarf and jacket, as a punishment for protesting against the
administration of the Gazl and Nasseg factory at al-Mahalla factory. In cases
in which violations are not gendered, they have gendered consequences. In the
example of female workers, Wedad al-Demerdash testifies to an incident in which
a female worker involved in the negotiations with Hussein Megawer, president of
the Egyptian Federation of Trade Unions, was forced to quit her job by her
husband.
The concept papers do not only shed light on the nature of violations faced by
WHRDs, but also the ways in which they challenge norms that forbid their human
rights defense. In the case of university students, for example, Kholoud Sabir,
Professor at Cairo University College of Arts, testifies to a sit-in in which
female students resorted to excluding themselves from the rest of the
sit-inners and read Quran. Reading the Quran publicly was an attempt at
showcasing their belief that, although they are spending the night outside
their homes, they are still “respectable”, religious women who deserve respect,
not admonition.
The Papers thus offer a bird eye view of the situation of WHRDs in Egypt as a
whole, what kinds of violations they face, the ideas upon which such violations
are based on, and the ways that WHRDs attempt to fight back, not just the violations,
but also cultural norms that dictate what is acceptable of WHRDs as women.
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Research Paper