Fortifying Norms
We are seeing greater regression of norms and agreed commitments, capture of institutions and systems for human rights, regression in civic and democratic practices, and the rise of political movements that oppose gender equality and women’s human rights. Global feminist commons and systems are now under threat by actors in the process of undoing and diminishing their core precepts, pushing instead for a continuation of neoliberal, extractive, imperial, and neocolonial socioeconomic systems that deplete the planet and divide communities.
In response to this context, and the corresponding harms faced by all marginalised peoples of the Global South, we will adopt a proactive approach to strengthening the human rights frameworks and systems. We will centre the voices and needs of the people most significantly impacted, and work with them on a platform for solidarity and accountable movement building to challenge the multilateral system and States
to deliver on their obligations under international and domestic laws and their commitments on equality and rights. This requires us to reinvest in a new vision of the multilateral system and the human rights architecture at UN and State levels to deliver on their obligations to women, and a call for action that can no longer be delayed or ignored.
Centring women as actors in rights promotion and claiming, we understand from our collective experience that retrogressive forces and strategic capture of institutions, language, concepts and spaces, and the proliferation of false narratives are aimed at diminishing the foundations of women’s human rights and equality. This pillar strengthens the conditions for accountability, state compliance, and the culture
of rights.
As women face existential, material and ideological threats that diminish their power and personhood,we know that the core mandate and mission of IWRAW Asia Pacific of creating the tangible conditions for ensuring accountability for rights and equality for all women must move the norms and the system beyond promises and rhetoric, towards responding to the realities of women in the Global South. We are committed to holding States accountable to the obligations they have undertaken by ratifying CEDAW. Our approach is to focus on specific stakeholders who have specific roles in adhering to the culture of rights and its implementation.
Outcomes
- Global South feminists across movements, countries and contexts have increased access to knowledge resources and capacity to lead and influence in strengthening existing commitments and obligations on human rights and gender equality to impact structures of inequality, advance holistic change beyond law and policy at different levels, claim rights, and influence policies.
- Global South movements jointly implement collective strategies to hold States accountable for violations of the human rights standards of non-discrimination and substantive equality committed through their roles as members of multilateral and international organisations or regional and political blocs, and by corporate and other private or institutional actors,using feminist, rights-based approaches, including addressing the harms of corporate and elite capture of decision-making spaces across our priority thematic areas.