International Women's Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific is a feminist organisation committed to the full realisation of women's human rights through the pursuit of equality.
We act to disrupt structures, systems and institutions that violate women's human rights, and we engage in movement building that amplifies women’s voices and activism to create alternative political narratives and spaces.

From the Blog

Feminists should put the Right to Development back on their agenda

  The Right to Development (R2D) emerged in the 1970s as the hallmark of post-colonial nations’ quest for a fairer economic order. Since its embodiment in the 1986 Declaration on the Right to Development, and despite the long-lived, tumultuous political debate that its recognition provoked between Global North and South countries, developing nations and human […]

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Putting people and the planet at the helm of transformative climate action

This blog post is adapted from an article co-authored by IWRAW Asia Pacific’s Environmental Justice Programme Officer, Marisa Hutchinson, and Fellow, Jhannel Tomlinson. The article was originally published on Open Global Rights.   “For many Global South activists and communities, whose realities are already plagued by climate variability and change, the pledges and actions agreed […]

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Resources

Promoting the Equality of Women: IWRAW Asia Pacific’s Journey

IWRAW Asia Pacific’s founder Shanthi Dairiam details the rich history of her work in establishing IWRAW AP as a Global South-centric feminist organisation, bringing women’s realities into international human rights standards through engaging with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and its framework on substantive equality. Throughout the years of her activism, Shanthi’s efforts has galvanised the women’s rights movement globally to demand their human rights at the highest level, a vision that IWRAW Asia Pacific still holds close 30 years since our inception.

Read the book online

Universalising Gender Equality Norms: CEDAW’s critical role in protecting women’s SOGIESC rights

IWRAW Asia Pacific’s white paper rebuts the anti-gender movement’s so called ‘gender ideology’ and expounds the fact that human rights—especially women’s rights—on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sexual characteristics (SOGIESC) is a protected category within international human rights law as set out by the UN Treaty Body system.

Read the white paper

 

CEDAW Sessions

87th CEDAW Pre-Sessional Working Group

Cuba, Papua New Guinea, San Marino, Solomon Islands, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu (May-June 2023)

86th CEDAW Session

Albania, Bhutan, France, Guatemala, Jamaica, Malawi, Nicaragua, Niger, Philippines, Uruguay (October 2023)

88th CEDAW Pre-Sessional Working Group

Ireland, Israel, Lao PDR, Mauritius, Mexico, Romania, Saudi Arabia (October-November 2023)

 

 

 

Twitter Feed

Following recent Twitter API changes, we are waiting for technical issues to be resolved so that our live Twitter feed can resume display here. Meanwhile, please follow us on Twitter at @IWRAW_AP for live updates on our work, our partners’ work, information regarding CEDAW, and feminist resources from the Global South.