Grave violations of women’s human rights continue to occur worldwide with terrifying regularity. Women throughout the world face systematic gender-based discrimination and are regularly denied the right to life and security of person, full legal capacity, health care, education, employment, inheritance, and freedom of movement. Women still do not have full access to economic and political decision-making processes in their families, nations, or international institutions. Too often, governments allow crimes against women to go unpunished, continuing a culture of impunity for family members, state agents, and others who discriminate or commit violence against women.

In addition to the compelling moral reasons for focusing on women within a broad-based human rights agenda—their poor conditions, continued discrimination, and gender-based violence—there are two crucial strategic reasons for doing so. First, women are unique in that, unlike other groups struggling to achieve their rights, they are part of every community on earth. To bring women together as a group is to literally cut across all boundaries of race, ethnicity, national identity, and, of course, class. Second, it is widely acknowledged in development and poverty alleviation circles that women’s traditional roles within families and communities as caregivers—especially for those most at risk, such as children and the elderly—mean that help provided to them is help provided to all.

Since the early 1990s, Global Rights has worked to ensure that women everywhere can enjoy the full range of human rights. We currently run women’s rights-focused programming in Afghanistan, the Maghreb region of North Africa, and Nigeria.