Women human rights defenders (WHRDs) are women who defend human rights, and defenders of all genders who defend the rights of women and rights related to gender and sexuality. Their work and the challenges they face have been recognized by a United Nations (UN) resolution in 2013, which calls for specific protection for women human rights defenders. Women_Human_Rights_Defenders_International_Coalition_Logo

A woman human rights defender can be an Indigenous woman fighting for the rights of her community, a woman advocating against torture, an LGBTQI rights campaigner, a

sex workers A sex worker is a person who provides sex work, either on a regular or occasional basis. The term is used in reference to those who work in all areas of the sex industry.Oxford English Dictionary, "sex worker" According to one view, sex work is d ...

’ rights collective, or a man fighting for sexual and reproductive rights. Like other human rights defenders, women human rights defenders can be the target of attacks as they demand the realization of human rights. They face attacks such as discrimination, assault, threats, and violence within their communities. Women human rights defenders face additional obstacles based on who they are and the specific rights they defend. This means they are targeted just because they are women, LGBTI people or for identifying with their struggles. They also face additional obstacles connected with Institutional discrimination and inequality and because they challenge, or are seen to be challenging, patriarchal power and social norms. They are more at risk of facing gender based violence in the home and the community, and sexist, misogynistic, homophobic, trans-phobic threats, smears and stigmatization, as well as exclusion from resources and power. International Women Human Rights Defenders Day has been celebrated each 29 November since 2006.

Examples of contemporary WHRDs

Morena Herrera Morena Herrera (born ) is a Salvadoran feminist and social activist, noted for her work against her country's ban on abortion. During the Salvadoran Civil War, which ended in 1992, Herrera served as a left-wing freedom fighter for the Farabundo M ...

(El Salvador) * Estela de Carlotto (Argentina) *

Aura Lolita Chavez Ixcaquic Aura Lolita Chávez Ixcaquic (born 1972), known as Lolita, is a women's rights activist, Guatemalans, Guatemalan indigenous leader, and international leader in the struggle to preserve Natural resource, natural resources. She was a finalist of the ...

(Guatemala) *

Maxima Acuna Maxima may refer to: People * Maxima of Rome, early Christian saint and martyr * Maxima of Lisbon, early Christian saint and martyr * Queen Máxima of the Netherlands (born 1971) * Máxima Acuña, Peruvian activist * Maximilla, also known as ...

(Peru) *

Sheyene Gerardi Sheyene Gerardi (Born April 13) is an Italo-Venezuelan former actress, producer, media proprietor, and mining executive. She is the Lead of Robotics Outreach at NASA (CLASS), where she co-founded the NASA´s Planetary Landing Team in 2018. Gerard ...

(Venezuela) *

Sonia Pierre Solange Pierre (July 4, 1963 – December 4, 2011), known as Sonia Pierre, was a human rights advocate in the Dominican Republic who worked to end ''antihaitianismo'', which is discrimination against individuals of Haitian origin either born in ...

(Haiti) *

Su Changlan Su Changlan (; born ) is a prominent civil rights activist, who has worked in particular on women's rights, from Foshan, Guangdong, China. Background Su was born in Guangxi, and worked as an elementary school teacher for over a decade. She bec ...

(China) *

Leila de Lima Leila Norma Eulalia Josefa Magistrado de Lima (born August 27, 1959) is a Filipina politician, lawyer, human rights activist and law professor who previously served as a Senator of the Philippines from 2016 to 2022. She was the chairperson of ...

(Philippines) * Angkhana Neelapaijit (Thailand) *

Hina Jilani Hina Jilani ( ur, حنا جیلانی ؛ born 19 December 1953) is an advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and a human-rights activist from Lahore in Punjab. She is the founder of Pakistan’s first all-women law firm, Pakistan’s firs ...

(Pakistan) *

Azza Soliman Azza Soliman (Arabic: عزة سليمان; born 1966) is an Egyptian lawyer and women's rights activist. She co-founded the Centre for Egyptian Women's Legal Assistance (CEWLA), an organization that campaigns for the equality of women, with an em ...

(Egypt) *

Narges Mohammadi Narges Mohammadi (; born 21 April 1972) is an Iranian human rights activist and the vice president of the Defenders of Human Rights Center (DHRC), headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi. In May 2016, she was sentenced in Tehran to 16 ...

(Iran) * Loujain Al-Hathlou (Saudi Arabia) *

Katana Gégé Bukuru Katana Gégé Bukuru (born 31 December 1963 in the Democratic Republic of Congo) is a Congolese activist fighting for women rights. She is also the founder of the SOFAD (Solidarity of women activists for the defense of human rights). Bukuru is k ...

(DR Congo) *

Salimata Lam Salimata Lam is a Mauritanian human rights defender. She is an anti-slavery activist, and national coordinator of the human rights non-governmental organisation S.O.S. Esclaves. Biography Lam is the coordinator for S.O.S. Esclaves, a non-gover ...

(Mauritania) *

Delphine Djiraibe Delphine Djiraibe (born 1 December 1960) is a Chadian attorney and co-founder of the Chadian Association for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights.In 2006 she also founded the Public Interest Law Center (PILC). BBC News has described her as ...

(Chad) * Lydia Foy (Ireland) * Marjan Sax (Netherlands) * {{ill, Anina Ciuciu, fr, Anina_Ciuciu (France/Romania) *

Anna Mokrousova Hanna Mokrousova is the Ukrainian human rights defender, psychologist and a co-founder of Blue Bird, an organisation that tracks information about civilians kidnapped or disappeared in the Eastern Ukraine and provides psychological, legal and hum ...

(Ukraine) *

Chonthicha Jaengraew Chonthicha Jaengraew (or Jangrew: th, ชลธิชา แจ้งเร็ว; born 1995) is a Thai human rights defender, pro-democracy campaigner, Master's student at the Institute of Human Rights Peace studies, Mahidol University, and co ...

(Thailand) * Hortense Louge (Burkina Faso) * Caoimhe Butterly (Ireland) *

Geraldine Chacón Geraldine Patricia Chacón Villarroel (born 23 December 1993, in Caracas, Venezuela) is a lawyer, human rights advocate and student of Liberal Studies at the Universidad Metropolitana in Caracas. Chacón was declared a prisoner of conscience by ...

(Venezuela) *

Marfa Rabkova Marfa Rabkova ( Belarusian and russian: Марфа Рабкова; born 6 January 1995) is a Belarusian human rights activist and part of the Viasna Human Rights Centre. In 2020 she was arrested by the Belarusian authorities for her activism and se ...

(Belarus) These are some of the WHRDs killed in recent years, because of their human rights activism * Berta Cáceres (Honduras) * Marielle Franco (Brazil) *

Miroslava Breach Miroslava Breach Velducea (7 August 1962 – 23 March 2017) was a Mexican investigative journalist for ''La Jornada'' and ''Norte de Juárez'' in Chihuahua City, Mexico known for her reportage of human rights violations, drug trafficking, and g ...

(Mexico) * Dr George Tiller (USA) *

Gauri Lankesh Gauri Lankesh (29 January 1962 – 5 September 2017) was an Indian activist and former journalist from Bangalore, Karnataka. She worked as an editor in ''Lankesh Patrike'', a Kannada weekly started by her father P. Lankesh, and ran her own wee ...

(India) *

Xulhaz Mannan Xulhaz Mannan ( bn, জুলহাজ মান্নান; 12 October 1976 – 25 April 2016) was an employee of the United States embassy in Dhaka and the founder of Bangladesh's first and only LGBT-themed magazine, '' Roopbaan''. He was kil ...

(Bangladesh) *

Noxolo Nogwaza Noxolo Nogwaza (1987 – 24 April 2011) was a South African lesbian LGBT rights activist and member of the Ekurhuleni Pride Organising Committee. She was raped, then stoned and stabbed to death by assailants in KwaThema, Gauteng. Nogwaza had be ...

(South Africa) *

David Kato David Kato Kisule ( – 26 January 2011) was a Ugandan teacher and LGBT rights activist, considered a father of Uganda's gay rights movement and described as "Uganda's first openly gay man". He served as advocacy officer for Sexual Minorities ...

(Uganda) *

Natalia Estemirova Natalya Khusainovna Estemirova (russian: Наталья Хусаиновна Эстемирова; 28 February 1958 – 15 July 2009) was a Russian human rights activist and board member of the Russian human rights organization Memorial. ...

(Russia) * Hande Kader (Turkey) *

Salwa Bugaighis Salwa, an Arabic name meaning "solace", may refer to: People *Princess Salwa Aga Khan (born 1988), American model, wife of Prince Rahim Aga Khan *Sally ("Salwa") Shatila Kader, Lebanese-American peace activist *Salwa Abdullah (born 1953), Syrian ...

(Libya) *

Almaas Elman Almaas Elman (died 20 November 2019) was a Somali-Canadian humanitarian aid worker, the eldest daughter of a prominent family of humanitarian aid-workers. Her parents were Elman Ali Ahmed and Fartuun Adan. She, her mother and her sisters emig ...

(Somalia/Canada) See also

List of women killed fighting for human rights This is a list of notable women, either famous themselves or closely associated with someone well known, who were killed fighting for human rights. By year 2022 * Nokuthula Mabaso, South Africa - Social movement leader 2020 *Fikile Ntshangase ...

References

External links

Women human rights defenders
UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition
(WHRD-IC)
#Defendher campaign

Free Viasna
Marfa Rabkova