Defenders of human rights often put themselves at personal risk to carry out their work. This blog examines the vulnerabilities human rights and land rights activists face, especially female activists and defenders of land and women’s rights. t the beginning of October we read about a company lawyer in El financiero (ES), a national Mexican newspaper, who was referring to …
Make education safe for all: Let girls learn!
Oxfam’s Gender Justice Programme Coordinator in Malawi, Anthony Malunga, reflects on Malawi’s education system and on what can be done to protect girls in the classroom and support their aspirations. lobally, education remains the key investment area needed by all countries to ensure they have current and future capacity for development. In Malawi, girls’ education is affected by multiple, socio-cultural …
31 women activists murdered in 2015: You can help stop the violence
International Women Human Rights Defenders Day was November 29th, you can support women on the front line defending rights. erta Cáceres was murdered in March 2016. Berta was peacefully opposing a dam project being built in her community. For this she paid with her life. Around the world, women human rights defenders*, like Berta, are threatened, attacked and murdered for …
The ladies’ room
Kerry Akers talks about the careful considerations and interdisciplinary collaboration needed to ensure that protection work is not based on harmful assumptions. umanitarian camps are dark at night. The curfew is sunset and the camp is heaving. Spilling out of their crowded tents onto the streets, people sit around dim cooking stoves talking and waving the mosquitoes away. The streets …
Women leading in the peace
According to World Bank estimates of September 2016, two billion people live in countries where development outcomes are affected by fragility, conflict, and violence. By 2030, the share of global poor living in fragile and conflict-affected situations is projected to reach 46 per cent. Caroline Sweetman, Editor of Gender & Development, introduces us to the theme of gender in fragile …
Showing that we care: Challenging assumptions on unpaid care
Nikki van der Gaag, Director of Gender Justice and Women’s Rights at Oxfam, introduces us to the issue of unpaid care work and the impact that this has on women’s lives and women’s economic empowerment. here isn’t a woman in the world who doesn’t struggle to balance unpaid care and household work with her other responsibilities, including paid work. Which …
From coffee to conference
In this blog, Shekhar Anand and Emilia Torrisi share Oxfam’s learning on building influencing networks, how we are achieving it and why it is crucial to creating sustainable change. t Oxfam we know how crucial is to work with and influence others to enable changes in the life of poor and vulnerable communities. By bringing people together to find common solutions …
From the ground up: How Yemen’s women and girls survive
This blog introduces a study carried out by Oxfam, CARE and GenCap, to better understand how women, men, girls and boys survive in Yemen, a country torn apart by conflict. s Dubai and Saudi Arabia vie with each other to build the world’s tallest tower at an estimated cost of over $1 billion, Yemeni women and girls struggle to survive amidst …
Outed “locker room talk” is strengthening global movement to stop violence against women
Oxfam GB’s Director of Women’s Rights and Gender Justice Nikki van de Gaag, explores how the events surrounding the US Presidential campaign can help end violence against women around the world. Recent events have seen many people loudly expressing concern that after so many years of hard work on women’s rights, and rafts of legislation on gender-based violence, it is still …
CLARA: How a livelihoods and risk assessment tool is supporting women’s economic empowerment
There are more than 3.3 million displaced people in Iraq. Women and girls, and their ability to participate in livelihoods, have been particularly affected by this displacement. In this blog Corrie Sissons explains how the Cohort Livelihoods and Risk Assessment (CLARA) tool has been informing programme design and livelihood initiatives that can safely seed longer-term recovery. hen a shock happens, …