INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZING
This section contains links to international bodies
like the United Nations (UN) as well as non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) that focus on lobbying in the international arena.
This information is presented alphabetical order.
Amnesty
International (www.amnesty-usa.org/women)
is a worldwide movement of people who work through international
action to prevent some of the most serious human rights violations
by governments and other political groups. This link takes
you to the women's page of the US chapter. It contains links
to human rights documents, news, and stories about women who
have been assisted by Amnesty International. The main page
( www.amnesty.org
) lists current campaigns and other chapters around the
world.
The Association for Women's Rights in Development
(www.awid.org)
(AWID) is an international membership organization
connecting, informing and mobilizing people and organizations
committed to achieving gender equality, sustainable development
and women's human rights. AWID's goal is to cause policy,
institutional and individual change that will improve the
lives of women and girls everywhere. We do this by facilitating
ongoing debates on fundamental and provocative issues as well
as by building the individual and organizational capacities
of those working for women's empowerment and social justice.
Their four areas of interest are feminist organizational development;
gender equality and new technologies; women's rights and economic
change, and young women and leadership. On this site you will
find links, publications, and job opportunities in these areas.
The Canadian Feminist Alliance
for International Action (www.fafia.org)
( FAFIA
) is an alliance of over 40 Canadian women's equality-seeking
non-governmental organizations which formed in 1999 . FAFIA
seeks to develop the capacity of Canadian equality seeking
women and women's groups to participate in current and future
domestic policy debates especially on globalization trends
and the liberalization of trade. On this site, you will find
calls to action, research resources and information on the
advances made five years after the UN Conference on Women
in Beijing (1995).
The Center for Women's Global Leadership (www.cwgl.rutgers.edu)
promotes the leadership of women and advances feminist
perspectives in policy-making processes in local, national
and international arenas. The Center fosters women's leadership
through women's global leadership institutes, strategic planning
activities, international mobilization campaigns, UN monitoring,
global education endeavors, publications, and a resource center.
It works from a human rights perspective with an emphasis
on violence against women, sexual and reproductive health
and socio-economic well-being. On this site, you will find
suggestions about how to become involved in the women's human
rights movement, news about the center, and research articles
on human rights.
Human Rights Watch – Women’s Program (hrw.org/women)
is the women's rights page of Human Rights Watch,
an organization that stands with victims and activists to
prevent discrimination, to uphold political freedom, to protect
people from inhumane conduct in wartime, and to bring offenders
to justice. Human Rights Watch is an independent, nongovernmental
organization, supported by contributions from private individuals
and foundations worldwide. It accepts no government funds,
directly or indirectly. On their site, you will find extensive
news coverage of human rights violations worldwide, information
on how to act and very graphic photo essays of human rights
abuses.
The Institute
for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (www.idea.int/gender/index.htm)
exists to improve and enhance women's effectiveness in political
positions and to strengthen their impact in decision-making
forums. On this site you will find news, links, resources
and many statistics related to women's participation in democratic
elections.
The International Women’s Rights Project (www.yorku.ca/iwrp)
at York University , Canada is a research resource
for many areas of human rights including information on women's
human rights in Afghanistan and on the issue of trafficking
in women.
Madre ( www.madre.org)
is a US-based women’s human rights organization
that works in partnership with women’s community-based groups
in conflict areas worldwide to address issues of health, education,
economic development and human rights. Madre provides resources
and training to enable other women’s organizations to meet
immediate needs in their communities and develop long-term
solutions to the crises they face. Since 1983, Madre has delivered
over 18 million dollars worth of support to community-based
women’s groups in Central America , the Caribbean , the Middle
East , Africa , the Balkans and the United States . Most importantly,
Madre educates and mobilizes its 23,000 members in the US
to demand alternatives to destructive US policies. On this
site, you will find information about women’s human rights
worldwide.
The Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (www.oecd.org)
(OECD) is a group of 29 member countries whose governments
discuss and develop economic, environmental, political, and
social policy. They compare experiences, seek answers to common
problems and work to co-ordinate domestic and international
policies attendant to the process of globalization. They are
both a research and a political body. The site contains access
to OECD publications in downloadable .pdf format.
The Sisterhood Is Global Institute (www.sigi.org)
(SIGI) is an international non-governmental, non-profit
organization dedicated to the support and promotion of women's
rights at the local, national, regional, and global levels.
SIGI works toward empowering women and developing leadership
through human rights education. On their site you will find
evidence of their membership in 70 countries, publications,
newsletters and other resources.
whrNET (www.whrnet.org)
is a collaborative Information & Communication
Technology (ICT) project developed by an International Coalition
of Women’s Human Rights Organizations. whrNET aims to strengthen
advocacy for women's human rights through the effective utilization
of information and communication technologies. whrNET provides
information, on-line discussion and networking space, and
resources for capacity-building among women’s human rights
organizations and activists. On this tri-lingual site you
will find talk forums, action alerts and research resources.
WomenAction (www.womenaction.org)
is a networking forum to help over 30 organizations
which participated in the United Nations Fourth World Conference
on Women in Beijing (1995) pressure governments to implement
decisions made in Beijing concerning women’s human rights.
Links to almost all of the member organizations can be found
on this site which provides an excellent collection of documents
from the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women.
Women In Developement Europe ( www.eurosur.org/wid)
WIDE is a European network of development non-governmental organizations,
gender specialists and human rights activists. WIDE monitors and influences
international economic and development policy and practice from a feminist perspective.
WIDE's work is grounded on women's rights as the basis for the development of a more
just and democratic world order. WIDE strives for a world based on gender equality a
nd social justice that ensures equal rights for all,
as well as equal access to resources and opportunities in all spheres of
political, social and economic life.
WomenWatch (www.un.org/womenwatch)
acts as an entry point to the work of a variety of
United Nations (UN) agencies focused on women and gender at
the UN. Use this site as the entry point for UNIFEM and many
other divisions within the United Nations which provide statistical
updates, position papers and other information about the well-being
of women around the world.
Gender, Science and Technology Gateway (http://GSTGateway.wigsat.org)
GTS Gateway (with sections focussing on different global regions)
This Gender, Science and Technology Gateway is presented by the Gender
Advisory Board of the UN Commission on S&T for Development (UNCSTD) to help
policy makers implement the Gender Working Group recommendations. The
recommendations are meant to address some of the gendered inequalities of
science and technology for development as it has been practiced to date. The
GST Gateway is a resource for researchers, policy makers, and NGOs. It
provides key links and information on research,practice, policy and partners
in sustainable development which focuses on gender equality.
This site has many links to UN documents on women, development and technology.
Here you can also find a discussion of the ethics surrounding biotechnology
(http://gstgateway.wigsat.org/TA/ethics/biotech.html).
The United Nations Development Fund for Women ( www.unifem.undp.org),
commonly referred to as UNIFEM, promotes women's
empowerment and gender equality. It works to ensure the participation
of women in all levels of development planning and practice,
and acts as a catalyst within the UN system, supporting efforts
that link the needs and concerns of women to all critical
issues on the national, regional and global agendas. At this
site you can access information about UNIFEM’s history, the
projects and organizations it supports. Along with WomenWatch
( www.un.org/womenwatch
), this is the major source for United
Nations documents on women and gender.
The Division for the Advancement of Women ( www.un.org/womenwatch/daw
) at the United Nations advocates the improvement
of the status of women of the world and the achievement of
their equality with men. It aims to ensure the participation
of women as equal partners with men in all aspects of human
endeavour. It promotes women as equal participants and beneficiaries
of sustainable development, peace and security, governance
and human rights. It strives to stimulate the mainstreaming
of a gender perspective both within and outside the United
Nations system. Of particular interest on this site is a table
(www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/country/index.html
) that lists the compliance of individual countries
with resolutions passed at the 1995 Beijing conference.
Women's Wire (www.womenswire.net)
is a news service giving updates on the activities
of women activists worldwide. It reports by region on human
rights issues of importance to local women. Women's Wire is
a recipient of a major grant from the United Nations Children's
Fund. Some articles may be outdated.
|