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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.
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’ 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.
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
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’ 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. Ge ...
(Venezuela)
* Sonia Pierre (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 (Egypt)
* Narges Mohammadi (Iran)
* Loujain Al-Hathlou (Saudi Arabia)
* Katana Gégé Bukuru (DR Congo)
* Salimata Lam (Mauritania)
* Delphine Djiraibe (Chad)
* Lydia Foy (Ireland)
* Marjan Sax (Netherlands)
* {{ill, Anina Ciuciu, fr, Anina_Ciuciu (France/Romania)
* Anna Mokrousova (Ukraine)
* Chonthicha Jaengraew (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 (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 (Uganda)
* Natalia Estemirova (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 (Somalia/Canada)
See also List of women killed fighting for human rights.
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