* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
This past weekend in Ciudad Juárez, México, the corpses of the siblings of Josefina Reyes Salazar, a longtime women human rights defender murdered in 2010,were delivered to their mother, Sara Salazar, bringing the total number of people slain over the last year in the Reyes family to six.
Since the late 1990s, Josefina Reyes Salazar had campaigned for proper investigation of hundreds of unsolved murders of women and participated in protests against the drug-related violence and human rights violations by the army in the Juárez Valley. She and her family were the targets of constant threats and victims of brutal attacks by drug cartels, gangs and paramilitary factions.
For the last few days, Sara Salazar and her daughter Marisela, along with other family members and representatives from various Mexican organizations, have been protesting outside the Senate in Mexico City, calling for federal and state officials to vigorously investigate the abductions and killings. Although heart-wrenching, Salazar’s situation is unfortunately not uncommon; worldwide, many like her seek justice for family members who have lost their lives in fights for rights.
Cruel attacks on women human rights defenders (WHRDs) like Reyes Salazar occur all over the world, with both the defenders and their family members subject to surveillance, stigmatization, threats, arrest, detention, criminalization, sexual violence, rape and murder.The number of cases is rapidly rising, with defenders in the Americas, and particularly Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, México and Peru, most at risk. The situation is also really serious in Central Asia, the Caucuses, Afghanistan and Iran.
In light of this, human rights and women’s rights organizations are thrilled that Margaret Sekaggya, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, has focused her 2011 report to the Human Rights Council on the serious and gender-specific circumstances faced by WHRDs. The report calls for recognition of their work as active agents of social transformation and the need for gender-specific protections.
Sekaggya writes, “women defenders are more at risk of suffering certain forms of violence and other violations, prejudice, exclusion, and repudiation than their male counterparts. This is often due to the fact that women defenders are perceived as challenging accepted socio-cultural norms, traditions, perceptions and stereotypes about femininity, sexual orientation, and the role and status of women in society.”
WHRDs work on a broad range of issues, including sexual and reproductive rights, indigenous rights and environmental issues, trade unions and labor rights, impunity and access to justice. Some defenders denounce abuses in contexts of conflict and terrorism such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Sudan, Colombia, the North Caucasus, the Balkan countries, and Nepal. Sekaggya also highlights women professionals - including medical and health professionals, legal professionals, and journalists and media professionals - as being at risk.
In the last five years alone, the Rapporteur’s office was informed of 39 killings of women human rights defenders and another 35 cases of attempted killings.
Sekaggya’s special, groundbreaking recognition for women human rights defenders comes more than a decade after the UN General Assembly adopted the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders in 1999. It states that individuals have the right to promote, protect and realize human rights and fundamental freedoms at national and international levels. And it stresses that the primary responsibility for promoting and protecting human rights lies with the State – both against violations by the State as well as non-state actors.
The recent report finds that current protection mechanismsfor defenders are not gender-sensitive and are inadequate due to lack of implementation and political will. In some states, non-state actors are not even recognized as perpetrators.
Nevertheless, the report notes that WHRDs have developed a multitude of strategies to ensure their own safety, including building strategic alliances with other national and international organizations. In some cases, WHRDs increase their visibility through public denunciation and public campaigns; in others, they lower the profile of activities to avoid drawing attention.
Sekaggya emphasizes, though that “while such initiatives are commendable and often extremely effective, they are insufficient to replace the State’s programs necessary to effectively address the security needs of this group of defenders.”
The Rapporteur makes several recommendations, including that States “publicly acknowledge the particular and significant role played by women defenders…as a first step to preventing or reducing the risks they face.”
Additionally, Sekaggya calls for to States to consult with WHRDs to best implement prompt and impartial investigations of violations and fight impunity. She emphasizes that states need to increase resources for protection programs, incorporate a gender perspective into the programs; and improve mechanisms for documenting cases of violations.
Overall, Sekaggya connects the protection of WHRDs to security more broadly, positing “the security of such defenders is inherently linked to the security of their communities and can only be fully achieved in the context of a holistic approach which includes deepening democracy, the fight against impunity, reducing economic inequalities, and striving for social and environmental justice, among others.”
As we celebrate International Women’s Day this March 8th, let us all build solidarity with women’s human rights defenders at risk throughout the world and denounce this heinous form of gender-based violence as we continue our struggle for human rights, democracy, justice, environmental sustainability and peace.
Lydia Alpízar Durán with contributions from Masum Momaya and Analía Penchaszadeh
