Go there to come back: Reflections from Botswana’s CEDAW review
May 9th, 2019
“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colours. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.” – Terry Pratchett The crisp winter morning […]
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The long road to workers’ rights: The struggle for unionisation in Bangladesh
May 1st, 2019
To improve conditions and benefits for staff, workers at Hoplun Apparels in Gazipur, Bangladesh, needed to register their union. But by law, at least 30 percent of the factory’s 6000-strong workforce needed to join it, with documents submitted to the Department of Labour. (In September 2018, this threshold was cut to 20 percent.) Nazma Akter, […]
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What do we mean when we talk about trafficking?
April 5th, 2019
By Ishita Dutta In January 2019 in Bangkok, I had the privilege of meeting with and learning from the experiences of 40 experts invested in ending trafficking in women. They represented over 25 countries but, as happens often in ‘global’ advocacy spaces, we had one expert carrying all of Latin America on their back […]
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Making the case for gender-responsive transport infrastructure
March 18th, 2019
By Priyanthi Fernando CSW63 has as its priority theme “social protection systems, access to public services and sustainable infrastructure for gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls”. Within this very broad theme, ‘sustainable infrastructure’, and its impact on gender equality and women’s and girls’ empowerment, is probably the most challenging for women’s rights […]
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#CEDAW71: Reporting back
December 14th, 2018
The 71st session of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) took place from 22 October to 9 November 2018 at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, during which the CEDAW committee carried out constructive dialogues with eight member states: Bahamas, Congo, Lao PDR, Macedonia, Mauritius, Nepal, Samoa and […]
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Post-Bali reflections: The insider strategy
November 29th, 2018
IWRAW Asia Pacific executive director Priyanthi Fernando looks back on her participation at the IMF-World Bank Annual Meeting and considers the pros and cons of engaging with neoliberal institutions. (Read her initial post from Bali: Saying It Loud and Clear.) In the hotel in Benoa, Bali, where I stayed with other Civil Society Forum participants, […]
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Care is an economic issue: Addressing gender inequalities in care work
October 11th, 2018
Ipek Ilkkaracan is Professor of Economics at Istanbul Technical University, a founding member of Women for Women’s Human Rights (WWHR) – New Ways and a member of IWRAW Asia Pacific’s advisory committee. She coined the term ‘purple economy’ to convey the need for an economic model which recognises care work. Without it, the sustainability of […]
Read MoreDispatch from Bali: Saying it loud and clear
October 8th, 2018
Embed from Getty Images Writing from the IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings in Bali, our executive director Priyanthi Fernando reflects on two very different perspectives on the state of today’s world. In Christine Lagarde’s curtain raiser speech for the IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings being held this week in Bali, the message is that the sun is […]
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CEDAW and extraterritorial obligations: Papua New Guinea activists highlight Australia’s role in human rights violations
September 20th, 2018
By Nikta Daijavad At IWRAW Asia Pacific’s From Global to Local training programme, run in parallel to the 70th CEDAW Session, we were joined by two activists from a small group of Papua New Guinea women working to expose the gendered harms of Australia’s largescale extractive industries – which have operated across many provinces of […]
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Tough on crime, tough on the victims of crime: Challenging harmful anti-trafficking measures
July 30th, 2018
By Nine The World Day against Trafficking in Persons was designated as 30 July, to “raise awareness of the situation of victims of human trafficking and for the promotion and protection of their rights.” The United Nations Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons approaches the issue from numerous angles, recognising that multiple […]
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