Activistes féministes: Francophone Women Writers and International Human Rights

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 318-328
Author(s):  
Alison Rice
Keyword(s):  
Women Writers ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
African Immigrants ◽  
Literacy Skills ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Writing Workshops ◽  
International Human ◽  
Business Acumen ◽  
Shed Light

Several prominent contemporary Francophone women writers have embraced activism in compelling forms. In her written creations, Maïssa Bey from Algeria has continually called attention to the lack of women’s rights in her homeland; she has also initiated writing workshops for women to reflect and express themselves. Fatou Diome, who left Senegal for Strasbourg, has shed light in her work on racism and sexism that African immigrants often face in Europe, and she has created an association in her homeland to help individuals become financially solvent. Yanick Lahens from Haiti has similarly devoted herself to activist endeavours on her island, including co-founding a library and working with youth after the earthquake. As these authors seek to create compassion through writing, they also promote empathy through their engagement outside the text, empowering people of various backgrounds by providing them with literacy skills, business acumen, and a sense that their story matters.

scholarly journals United Nations endorsement and support for human rights: An experiment on women’s rights in Pakistan

2020 ◽  
pp. 002234332091283
Author(s):  
Gulnaz Anjum ◽  
Adam Chilton ◽  
Zahid Usman
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Policy Reforms ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
International Human ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
New Policies

The United Nations is one of the organizations charged with developing and promoting international human rights law. One of the primary ways that the United Nations tries to do that is by regularly reviewing the human rights practices of member states and then recommending new policies for that state to implement. Although this expends considerable resources, a number of obstacles have made it difficult to empirically assess whether the UN’s review process actually causes countries to improve their human rights practices. To study this topic, we conducted an experiment in Pakistan that tested whether respondents were more likely to support policies aimed at improving women’s rights when they learned that the reforms were proposed by the United Nations. Our results indicate that the respondents who were randomly informed of the United Nations endorsement not only expressed higher support for the policy reforms, but also were more likely to express willingness to ‘mobilize’ in ways that would help the reforms be implemented. Our treatment did not have any effect, however, on respondents that did not already have confidence in the United Nations. This suggests that the international human rights regime may only be able to aid domestic reformers when there is already faith in those institutions.

Overlapping international human rights institutions: Introducing the Women’s Rights Recommendations Digital Database (WR2D2)

2020 ◽  
Vol 57 (5) ◽  
pp. 648-657
Author(s):  
Jillienne Haglund ◽  
Courtney Hillebrecht
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Temporal Trends ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Digital Database ◽  
Human Rights Regime ◽  
International Human ◽  
Dense Set

With the proliferation of the international human rights regime, states confront a dense set of institutional commitments. Our knowledge of the influence of these commitments is limited for two reasons. First, scholars largely focus on the effect of treaty ratification on states’ human rights behavior, but states engage with these institutions after ratification via regional human rights court rulings and UN recommendations. Second, scholars often examine these institutions in isolation. The institutions do not operate in isolation, however, nor do states necessarily consider the requests they receive from these institutions independently. In this article, we introduce the Women’s Rights Recommendations Digital Database (WR2D2), which maps the various recommendations international women’s rights institutions make on European states. We begin by discussing the importance of recommendations from international institutions and their relationship with commitment and compliance. We then describe the data collection effort, including two dimensions on which recommendations made to European states vary – precision and action. Next, we report descriptive statistics from the dataset, including regional and temporal trends. We conclude with a discussion of the multifaceted research agenda that this new dataset can facilitate.

scholarly journals Women’s rights under universal protection and international human rights treaties: dialogues between global and local

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (20) ◽  
pp. 48-60
Author(s):  
Lara Santos Zangerolame Taroco ◽  
Ana Cecília Sabbá Colares
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Human Rights Treaties ◽  
International Human ◽  
Global And Local

Os principais documentos internacionais de tutela dos direitos humanos estabelecem a igualdade como um direito a ser efetivado, tendo este sido proclamado em diversas declarações. Não obstante, tal igualdade tem permanecido meramente formal, sendo árdua a tarefa de transformá-la em igualdade real entre mulheres e homens, principalmente quando se constata que a construção histórica dos direitos humanos sempre ocorreu com a exclusão da mulher e o reforço de ideologias patriarcais. O resultado desse desigual é a vulnerabilidade da mulher, advinda de um modelo de sociedade patriarcal, que afeta diretamente o cumprimento dos direitos humanos. Portanto, o devido enfrentamento das circunstâncias que propiciam a situação de vulnerabilidade de mulheres, atrelado ao combate à desigualdade de gênero é essencial para o combate da discriminação contra a mulher e consequente proteção dos direitos humanos, razão pela qual é temática objeto de preocupação de várias instâncias internacionais. Com base neste cenário, o presente estudo tem por objetivo apresentar os principais tratados internacionais relacionados com a proteção aos direitos das mulheres, em especial a Convenção sobre Eliminação de Todas as Formas de Discriminação contra a Mulher, com vistas a analisar como estes tratados são recepcionados e como essas normas internacionais infl uem na conformação do ordenamento jurídico brasileiro.

Human Rights Universalism in Practice: What the Iranian Women’s Rights Movement Can Teach Us

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 453-479
Author(s):  
Nicole Nickerson
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Global Network ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights Movement ◽  
International Human

Abstract Does practice demonstrate the legitimacy of international human rights law? This article explores this question via a case study of the women’s rights movement in Iran. Current human rights sceptics question the system’s legitimacy because of a lack of universality and an excessive top-down approach. However, the Islamic Republic of Iran has a remarkable community of grassroots activists. The bottom-up women’s rights initiative of the One Million Signatures Campaign utilised human rights discourse in combination with local, indigenous values in pursuit of gender equality. The article argues—via the case study of this movement—that there is practical evidence to support a theory of human rights universalism, as positive human rights law empowers the existing subjectivity of individuals. The universal legitimacy of international human rights law does not primarily come from a global network dictating common values, but from members of civil society mobilising their status as rights holders.

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