How We Work

Our way of working has always been to create a culture of compliance with CEDAW and other human rights treaties through a range of strategies. These include strengthening the capacities of women’s rights organisations and other actors; engaging in evidence-based advocacy with the CEDAW committee and other treaty bodies, public institutions at the national, regional and international level, and the private sector; and developing extensive networks and strategic alliances to achieve gender equality.

 

Our vision: the full realisation of women's human rights through the pursuit of equalityCurrent context: right-wing politics | extremism | patriarchy | neoliberal economics climate crisis | xenophobia | corporate capture of states corporate capture of the UN | free trade agreements. Overarching goal: Our goal is to turn the promise of CEDAW into a reality, ensuring substantive equality, non-discrimination and state obligation for human rights for all women everywhereOur political intent is to disrupt the structures, systems and institutions that violate women’s human rights, and to engage in movement building that amplifies women’s voices and activism to create alternative political narratives and spacesOutcomes of our five-year strategy (2020-2024): Contributing to the realisation of CEDAW will be the mobilisation of a movement of women, women's rights organisations and allies, engaged in: countering regression of human rights in general and women's human rights in particular; reframing essentialised narratives that result in exclusion and 'Othering'; recognising and addressing the unequal impact of borders; reimagining and reframing the concept of state obligation; ensuring accountability for women's human rights in multiple spaces; reflecting, reframing, learning and unlearningWe will achieve this through 5 interconnected programme areas: repoliticising international frameworks on environmental degradation and climate change from a feminist perspective; halting the capture of human rights institutions by regressive forces; recognising and addressing women's human rights issues relating to trafficking and statelessness; calling on states and corporates to protect women's human rights and promote decent work for women; ensuring that economic growth and development agendas of states, transnational corporations, international finance and trade institutions and the UN do not undermine women's human rightsOperational Strategies used by IWRAW Asia Pacific: feminist analysis and knowledge creation; networking and alliance building; amplifying marginalised voices; strengthening movements and fostering cross-movement alliances; online communications; convenings; policy advocacy; campaignsInstitutional strategy: IWRAW Asia Pacific will reflect on our own organisational structure and culture, adapting it to be more responsive to the challenges of the current context, to infuse intersectionality and to recognise and include a new generation of feminists. We will learn and unlearn from our history of activism. Outcomes of our reflexive strategic activities will be: a financially sustainable organisation; governance bodies that are more reflective of IWRAW Asia Pacific’s constituencies; organisational structures and processes that reflect IWRAW AP’s feminist values and ways of working and are fit for purpose to deliver the strategy

Countering Human Rights Regression and UN Capture

Interrogating Borders and their Impact on Women's Human Rights

Connecting Gender Equality to Environmental Justice

Advancing Gender Equality in the World of Work

Transforming Economics and Development through a Feminist Approach

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