Authoritarian leaders in both rich and poor countries are taking a hardline stance by restricting women’s rights. We must trust and invest in feminists on the front lines.
Autocratic leaders around the world are paying close attention as we approach 2025, which will likely be the heyday of impunity for human rights violations around the world. In rich and poor countries, these leaders protect our rights: to speak our mind, to control our bodies, to vote our conscience, to have safe shelter, clean water, affordable nutrition, education, They use their power by curtailing the right to access basic things like health care.
At WomenStrong International, our partners around the world are seeing this tightening of restrictions up close.
In Afghanistan, in January the Taliban increased the conditions of 80 repressive measures targeting the rights of girls and women, banning girls from attending medical training institutions. Two years ago, the Taliban banned Afghan women from attending university and working for non-governmental organizations at home and abroad, curtailing the ability of aid workers to identify and assist families in need, already leading the way. This is one of the reasons why the country’s maternal mortality rate is so high. The tallest thing in the world.
In August 2024, as part of the Taliban’s Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Act, the group issued a new religious code prohibiting women from praying aloud, showing their faces, or staring at men they don’t know. Related.
When the Taliban took power in 2021, school education beyond the sixth grade was banned, but the crackdown has now been stepped up, especially in urban areas. Through bravery, ingenuity, dedication, and genuine care, our partner Sahar Education manages to continue educating girls in ways I won’t reveal here, but we are committed to our programs and the safety of our staff and participants. The threat is terrifying. Authentic.
These bold local women-led organizations know best how to build effective coalitions, handle delicate negotiations, and push back when necessary.
In Asia, too, the work of Women’s Strong partners, the Labor and Development Association of India and the Gender and Development Association of Cambodia, is threatened by dramatic reductions in democratic spaces and human rights. India’s repressive Bharatiya Janata Party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Cambodia’s second-generation Hun Sen government, now under the leadership of Hun Manet, the son of a military general, have embraced freedom of the press, freedom of speech, It brutally targets workers’ rights and environmental causes.
Moving south to the sub-Saharan region, Women’s Strong’s Kenyan partner Action Foundation, which works with girls and women living with disabilities in the slums of Nairobi, is currently building on its longstanding commitment to working with girls and women living with disabilities in the slums of Nairobi. Rampant discrimination must be addressed. Recently, an epidemic of murders has disrupted civil society across the United States.
In Uganda, severe government repression of environmental and land rights activists and religious freedom are of deep concern to local WomenStrong partners Girl Up Initiative Uganda and Action for Development Uganda. and women’s rights, education, livelihoods, and activism. On empowerment and the intersection of gender and climate justice. Malawi and Zambia are also enacting new discriminatory laws targeting LGBTQ+ people, and local Women’s Strong partners Girls Empowerment Network and Copper Rose Zambia are investing staff, funding, and resources. Without this, it becomes difficult to meet the needs of all program participants. The very existence of non-governmental organizations is at stake.
Still, women’s rights groups are undaunted. Despite the risks, all the WomenStrong partners mentioned here, like the Action Foundation’s Women with Disabilities and Their Male Advocates, who passionately participated in anti-femicide protests across Kenya, have adopted covert workarounds. They find it, they fight back, and they persevere.
Other partners have found great ways to continue their work. Despite the continuing horrific violence against women and girls in Guatemala, our partners at the Women’s Justice Initiative are committed to combating femicide, sexual violence, exploitation, human trafficking and other forms of violence. Guatemala’s now strong laws criminalizing sex discrimination have been used to successfully prosecute crimes committed against girls and girls. Women in a highly vulnerable Mayan community.
In El Salvador, Women’s Strong partner Mujeres Transmando works with the local government to train civil servants on labor and human rights protections despite widespread human rights violations under President Nayib Boucle. It’s here.
And Women’s Strong’s partner, the Bangladesh Workers’ Solidarity Center, which has fought and sacrificed in the hard and long struggle to oust the corrupt and repressive ruler Sheikh Hasina, is now raising the minimum wage. They are working overtime to convince the new caretaker government to raise the stake and protect people and workers. ‘right.
We need to ask them what they need to continue their life-changing programs and advocacy work.
These bold local women-led organizations know best how to build effective coalitions, handle delicate negotiations, and push back when necessary. Nevertheless, major bilateral funders, corporations, and philanthropic organizations are pulling their stakes due to concerns about collaboration with authoritarian regimes, and women-led nonprofits are seeing the need to maintain their positions. There is a lack of financial, legal and diplomatic support.
In 2025, and perhaps beyond, women’s rights advocacy will depend on our ability to intervene and support these brave local NGOs, who are best placed to know what the women and girls in their communities need. It will be up to all of us. . We need to ask them what they need to continue their life-changing programs and advocacy work. We need to trust and listen to their responses. And to ensure that girls, women, the LGBTQ+ community, and other marginalized groups have the support they need to thrive now and for years to come. must be supported.
Women’s rights and all of our rights are under serious threat, and women on the front lines are risking their personal safety, health, and organizational survival to protect the universal goal of universal rights. That’s the least we can do when we’re putting that thing at risk. .