GAZA; EUROMED RIGHTS URGES TO SUPPORT RESOLUTION ON ENSURING ACCOUNTABILITY IN THE OPT AT UN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL

EuroMed Rights urges the European Union (EU) and its Member States to support the findings of the United Nations (UN) Commission of Inquiry on the 2018 protests in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), notably by voting in favour of the resolution on ensuring accountability in the OPT at the UN Human Rights Council this week and contributing to the effective follow-up on and implementation of its recommendations.

As the anniversary of the Great March of Return approaches on 30 March 2019, Europe must take decisive action at the Human Rights Council to bring the reality in Israel/Palestine closer to justice, accountability, and respect for human rights.

After nearly a year of weekly protests along the Gaza fence, 192 Palestinians killed in the demonstrations, and over 15,021 injured,[1] the EU has neither condemned Israel’s use of lethal force against unarmed protestors, nor called for international and impartial investigations into the killings. In the face of the grave and extensive documentation, media coverage, videos and figures coming from Gaza, the EU and its Member States’ passive response stands in stark contrast with their longstanding position that respect for international law, including accountability, is a cornerstone for peace and security in Israel/Palestine. It also stands out from the EU’s large support for UN-mandated investigations in other countries.[2]

Europe’s exclusive focus on a non-existent peace process has become a structural impediment to addressing the grave human rights reality in Israel/Palestine, as demonstrated by Europe’s consistent inability to translate its leverage into substantial change on the ground. This week, the UN will provide the EU and its Member States with the opportunity to support the only functioning mechanism in place to effectively protect Palestinian lives in the ongoing demonstrations in Gaza, which continue to be met with excessive lethal force. Besides fully complying with international standards, the Commission of Inquiry is one of the few existing multilateral, impartial, and independent bodies seeking accountability for the conduct of all duty bearers in Israel/Palestine. Rather than anti-Israel bias, the prevailing situation in effect today is an international climate of impunity.

The Commission of Inquiry has found that the Israeli military’s use of live ammunition was illegal in almost all cases examined, was employed against protestors who did not pose an imminent threat and may constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity. Furthermore, it pointed to the lack of meaningful investigations that may lead to prosecution of the violations. Israel’s immediate reaction was to “utterly” reject the report’s findings. It is, therefore, utterly unrealistic, in the absence of international scrutiny, to expect a different outcome at the forthcoming protests.

1]Figures as provided by Gaza-based human rights group Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights (by 8 March 2019) http://mezan.org/en/post/23472
[2]The EU identified among its UN priorities for 2019 supporting UN-mandated Commissions of Inquiry for Burundi, the DPRK, Myanmar, Syria and Yemen.

https://euromedrights.org/publication/gaza-euromed-rights-urges-to-support-resolution-on-ensuring-accountability-in-the-opt-at-un-human-rights-council/

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Combating Violence against Women in the Southern Mediterranean Region

Launched in January 1st 2019, EuroMed Feminist Initiative EFI and a consortium of member women´s rights organizations in Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco, Palestine, Algeria, Jordan and Egypt started implementing a three-year regional project “Combating Violence against Women in the Southern Mediterranean Region”, funded by the EU. The overall objective is to contribute to the elimination of all forms of violence against women and girls (VAWG) in the Southern Neighborhood States, by promoting a social environment that does not tolerate VAWG and where decision makers address it as a political priority.



The project supports a multipronged, comprehensive approach to VAWG and encompasses three main actions that are interrelated and mutually reinforcing, these are: 1) Launching a Regional Campaign on Zero tolerance for violence against women and girls (VAWG) to help to get violence out of the private sphere and to support changing of public attitudes. 2) Strengthening the women´s rights CSOs-led dialogue with decision makers and contribute to the balance of power needed to achieve legal and policy change. 3) Establishing a Regional Civil Society Observatory to follow up on governmental commitments in the field of VAWG, women, peace and security (WPS) and preventing violent extremism (PVE) and to ensure improved collective knowledge to support the adoption and implementation of policies. 



Following up on recommendations from the Gender Regional Platform (2015-2017), the Civil Society Conference Declaration (Nov 2017, Cairo) and the Outcomes of national follow up dialogues on the 4th Ministerial Declaration (2018), EuroMed Feminist Initiative with the consortium members - Information Center on the Rights of Women and Children (CIDDEF) in Algeria, Association for Appropriate Communication Techniques for Development (ACT) in Egypt, Arab Women Organization (AWO) in Jordan, Association Najdeh and Lebanese Women Democratic Gathering (RDFL) in Lebanon, Women’s Action Union (UAF) in Morocco, the Federation of Women's Action Committees (PFWAC) and Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development (PWWSD) in Palestine and Tunisian Women's Association for Development and Research (AFTURD) - launches a regional campaign on Zero tolerance for VAWG in the South Mediterranean. The regional campaign captures common challenges in the region, such as legal discrimination, cultural stereotypes, social tolerance, impunity for perpetrators, putting stigma and blame on the victim and weak mechanisms of protection and care for women and girls victims of violence. At the same time, the campaign addresses priorities specific to the different national contexts, aiming to reach out to over one million people and involve a broad variety of national and local actors: from women´s rights organization and broader civil society, to decision makers,



first respondents (police, social workers, judges), relevant Ministries, opinion makers, academics, school teachers and students, victims of violence and discrimination, and globally, the whole society, women and men aiming to challenge gender stereotypes and achieving social change. The campaign encourages the whole society to stand up against VAWG, to demand adoption of a comprehensive legislation that criminalizes all forms of VAWG, and the implementation of such legislation when it exists.  A rights-based approach and gender equality in education has a particular focus.

Furthermore, the project aims at enhancing the capacities and work of CSOs and CBOs on VAWG while further developing and sustaining the structured policy dialogue led by women´s rights organizations since 2015, before the UfM Ministerial Conference on women´s rights, Cairo 2017. The dialogue addresses VAWG as a political priority and aims at developing a comprehensive legal framework on this crucial issue.

Moreover, the Civil Society Regional Observatory established in Amman since 1st January 2019 enables the civil society to follow up and monitor the implementation of the 4th UfM Ministerial Declaration from November 27th 2017, in particular in the area of VAWG, women, peace and security (WPS) and preventing violent extremism (PVE). The Observatory gathers data and provides a regional perspective on the status of VAWG policies in the Southern Neighborhood States. It contributes to the inclusion of women’s rights and ending VAWG in national legislative and policy debates, and to the social acknowledgement of women as actors of national security, underlining the importance of their role in the prevention of violent extremism.



This project strongly contributes to the ongoing efforts of civil society and governments alike, to eliminate violence against women and girls in the Southern Neighborhood States.

EuroMed Feminist Initiative is a policy network that encompasses women’s rights organizations from the two shores of the Mediterranean. It provides expertise in the area of gender equality and women’s rights as inseparable from democracy building and citizenship, advocates for political solutions to all conflicts, and for the right of peoples to self-determination. 

Contact Information:

ife@efi-euromed.org

www.efi-ife.org



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Recommendations on infrastructure and provision of public services 5/5

Recommendations on infrastructure and provision of public services

• Infrastructure development should be based on principles of respect and the promotion of human rights, guaranteeing the right of women and girls to the city, housing, water, mobility, technology information and communication.
• The selection and prioritization of infrastructure projects should be guided by the needs of people and avoid generating processes of population displacement and dispossession of the territories, whose impacts are mostly felt by women, especially by rural, indigenous and Afro-descendant women. Therefore, it is essential to generate effective participation mechanisms, binding consultation and free prior informed consent according to ILO Convention 169, that ensure that women’s voices are heard and taken into account during the entire process, starting before the design of the projects. Woman who are a part of such organization should have timely access to relevant information about the projects. Governments must guarantee the necessary financing for the proper functioning of these mechanisms.
• Likewise, the safety of human rights defenders must be guaranteed in their defense of the territory and natural resources, respecting the intercultural nature of each area.
• Infrastructure projects must be guided by the principle of universal accessibility, which implies that the gender perspective (contemplating diversities and intersectionalities) is considered at all stages, from the design and implementation to the monitoring of their functioning.
• In order to guarantee the effective consideration of the gender perspective, it is essential to produce information that allows the ex-ante and ex-post evaluation about gender dimensions of infrastructure projects and the provision of public services. Likewise, it is necessary that professionals in charge of development of infrastructure projects and provision of public services be trained with respect to this perspective.
• Effective transparency mechanisms must be managed in all infrastructure and provision of services projects, avoiding the promotion of financing mechanisms that operate outside existing standards (as is the case of many public-private partnerships in our region).
• Corruption in the development of infrastructure deepens inequality and affects the women and girl’s quality of life. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen anti-corruption mechanisms that affect public work of sustainable infrastructure, by means of access to public information and binding mechanisms (for example, public hearings) that ensure the informed participation of women’s organizations and girls.
• Infrastructure development and provision of public services projects must consider territorial differences and consider the diverse needs of women and girls, including the particularities of urban and rural spaces.
• Regarding transport issues, priority must be given to quality public transport, developing accessible and affordable systems that take into account the diverse needs of all people and those specific to women and girls (extended hours, appropriate frequencies, reserved seats, protection against harassment, access for women with reduced mobility, etc.).
• Adequate balances must be achieved between the development of transport infrastructure in central, peripheral and local areas, as well as in rural areas, with appropriate fare systems that consider inequalities, and, in all cases, focused on improving living conditions.
• Water is a public good and its access must be guaranteed as a right. The State is responsible for ensuring safety and cleanliness of water sources, as well as their accessibility for women.
• Implement effective mechanisms to manage the safety of women and girls in the use of public sanitation facilities and eliminate open defecation. Health services, as well as the rest of public services, must integrate management and information regarding menstrual hygiene.
• Generate a fiscal base for investments in sustainable health systems that take into account the needs of women.
• Ensure that the location of water sources is determined in consultation with the target users.
• Create infrastructure to guarantee the access of women and girls from rural and urban areas to information and communication technologies.

We reiterate that, in relation to economic, social and cultural rights, there is a principle of progressivity that has as its reverse the obligation not to back down. This principle means that there are not to be effects on the thresholds and standards of social protection already acquired, not repealing or modifying current regulations to the extent that this entails reducing, impairing or in any way adversely affecting the current level of protection. In order to fulfill this task, it is necessary to improve social protection, its maintenance, and, most importantly, avoid retrogression.

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Recommendations in relation to rural, indigenous and Afro-descendant women 4/5

Recommendations in relation to rural, indigenous and Afro-descendant women

• To improve the social protection of women living in rural areas, it is proposed to deconstruct CEDAW, so that rural women can better understand their rights and have access to such rights in their native (indigenous) languages. Implement the CEDAW in Item 14 in its articles E, D, F.
• Adopt public policies so that rural workers, afro-descendants and indigenous receive the due protection of decent work, as it is promoted by the ILO, adopting and applying labor standards.
• Ratify and implement ILO Recommendations: 204 on the transition from the informal economy to formal economy, 201 on domestic workers and 202 on social protection floors; and Conventions 189 on domestic work, 111 on discrimination in employment and 102 on social security.
• The conditional cash transfer programs seek to serve the big sector of the population in the region, excluded from traditional social protection systems linked to employment. In the region are focus on households with children, and impose conditionalities (regarding school attendance and health care), are highly feminized, adding conditional compliance for women. These programs have had a positive impact in reducing extreme poverty and in improving the education and health coverage of children. However, they have also have had contradictory effects on women and therefore should be reviewed.
• It is proposed that Public Private Partnership programs, including trade unions and civil society organizations, involve and integrate rural, indigenous and Afro-descendant women, considering specially not to attempt any of public benefits existing.
• Governments must develop and subsidize the Cooperative System. The subsidies assigned must be accessible to women and include agricultural inputs, concessions, capital, water, land and not be neutral in terms of gender.
• Rural, indigenous and Afro-descendant women are producers and protectors of food sovereignty. States should protect intellectual property rights over their products and traditional knowledge and provide facilities for the marketing and storage of their products for their distribution and conservation. Technical assistance, training, outreach and follow up programs must be provided to design and implement marketing strategies.
• Climate change and natural disasters are seriously endangering agricultural production, with major effects on rural, indigenous and afro-descendant women. The State has the main responsibility to protect and care about natural resources, fauna and flora (such as forests and marine fauna), industrial logging, lands, territories of over-exploitation and mining. Governments must invest in programs and activities to prevent climate change and natural disasters and take appropriate measures to ensure the provision of basic social services in situations of natural disasters, emergencies and conflict.
• To improve rural women’s access to benefits of Social Security, a partnership between the state and the university should be developed to establish a reciprocity of disaggregated data (indigenous, gender, age, need for access to social protection benefits, credits), for a better understanding of gaps. They must also ensure that the generation of data is disaggregated by sex, gender, geographic location, ethnicity, age and other relevant characteristics that facilitate social protection, public services and sustainable infrastructure that is to be both accessible and efficient.
• Strengthen and extend social protection mechanisms for jobs in rural areas in all forms, including informal, part-time, precarious employment and self-employment.

PICTURE OF    María Jesús Hernánadez Sánchez 
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Recommendations regarding education and health 3/5

Recommendations regarding education and health

• The progressive reduction of public budgets aimed at ensuring social protection, basic infrastructure and particularly public education and health services has become a trend in our region. We want to remind you that social protection, health and education are fundamental human rights and that the State has a non-delegable role to ensure the financing and provision of these, and that they should not be in the hands of private actors seeking principally to accumulate capital.
• We believe that public education and health services must be provided free of charge, with a gender perspective, intercultural and intersectional, and contribute to the transformation of the unequal power relations between women and men stereotypes and traditional roles and contributing to visualize the role of women in history. We recognize the strategic role of education policies to deconstruct hegemonic models of femininity and masculinity and prevent gender-based violence as well as that against women and girls.
• Public health and education services must ensure universal coverage following the principles of quality, accessibility, availability, and acceptability.
• We demand that our governments redouble their efforts to guarantee access to life-long, high quality, secular, public, free, inclusive, non-sexist education with a gender and intercultural perspective; in addition, we demand that such education, which should include comprehensive sexuality education for girls, adolescents and young people, be provided in indigenous languages.
• It is necessary to adopt concrete and effective measures to ensure the right to comprehensive health, particularly in the area of sexual and reproductive health – including the right to legal, safe and free abortion, friendly services for young people and adolescents and access to modern contraceptives—within the framework of public health, sexual and reproductive rights, mental health, with a human rights perspective.
• We demand measures to accelerate the fight to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls, gender-based violence, and violence against LGBTI groups, with special attention to groups suffering from multiple vulnerabilities.
• The current state of Latin America and the Caribbean demands special attention to girls, adolescents and young people and other vulnerable groups such as migrants, indigenous, afro-descendants, people with disabilities, those with HIV, the LGBTI population, sex workers, homeless women, and others.
• We recognize the diverse forms of families, ensuring that all family groups have the protection of the law and access to support systems.
• It is essential to strengthen the participation of civil society organized in the processes of formulation, design, monitoring, evaluation and implementation of public policies and budgets, with special emphasis on education and health and developing effective participatory mechanisms of accountability and transparency.
• The gradual expansion of the tax base should be promoted, considering the problem of tax evasion, to increase income and invest in social protection, recognizing the unequal distribution of unpaid work between women and men.

PICTURE OF    María Jesús Hernánadez Sánchez 
https://www.instagram.com/mjhdezs?r=nametag

https://world-psi.org/uncsw/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Declaraci%C3%B3n-de-la-Sociedad-Civil-Consulta-Preparatoria-CSW63-Versi%C3%B3n-en-espa%C3%B1ol.pdf

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Recommendations in relation to work, social protection and care economy 2/5

Recommendations in relation to work, social protection and care economy

• It is necessary to generate affirmative action policies in a progressive nature to reduce labor segmentation.
• Countries have to establish the value produced by each job in order to demand equal salary for equal work of equal value, according to the convene 100 of ILO with the methodology to eliminate the gender bias.
• Advance in integral and universal systems of care, education and health that reach women of formal, informal and unpaid work, recognizing the trade unions participation and the collective negotiations.
• Promote the participation of more women in decision-making spaces and in the design of public policies, specifically those related to social protection, recognizing the right to free association.
• Guarantee universal and non-targeted support for families who have young children.
• Ensure the Right to pension, universal inclusion: social security and minimum retirement with access to healthcare.
• Intra-gender gaps: Prioritize coverage’ extension for maternity leave, with criteria of universality. Prioritize the expansion of the number of people covered over the months of leave.
• Incorporate special licenses that assist women who suffer from violence and protocols of action and priority in housing and labour policies. Support the adoption of the ILO Convention and Recommendation on violence and harassment at work place.
• Eliminate legal and cultural barriers for informal and self-employed workers for access to universal social protection, especially in the cases of domestic workers, temporary migrants, sex workers / women in prostitution and other sectors.
• Incorporate the portability of rights for access to social protection for migrants, that is, recognition among countries of their qualification, work and contributions made on each country.
• That the States require companies that work with outsourced work platforms, including those working with virtual platforms and catalog sales (Uber, Avon, Natura) to comply with national labor, business and fiscal regulations, consistent with the agreements international organizations, especially the ILO.
• Equalize the birth and care licenses for men and women, same-sex couples, including the LGTBI population, in conditions of obligation for each other.
• In considering the years of service to access retirement, include weeks quoted for women according to the number of children.
• Generate law reforms in civil codes to recognize the division of goods to the person who has been responsible for the care and that such person be compensated in the dissolution of the conjugal partnership.
• Eliminate the formal, legal and cultural barriers in informal work that prevent self-employed and informal workers from accessing social protection, including indigenous and afro descendants.
• As long as the gender-based wage gap persists, promote affirmative actions of a progressive nature to compensate wage discrimination, for example, establish a rate of return to define the retirement amount for women, which is greater than that of men.

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Latin America & The Caribbean – CSW 63 Civil Society Declaration 1/5

Within the framework of the Preparatory Regional Consultation for Latin America and the Caribbean for the 63rd. Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) meeting in Buenos Aires, from December 10 to 12, 2018, On December 10, around 80 representatives of NGOs and 17 regional networks of women organizations and feminists from Latin America and the Caribbean meet to discuss the main theme for the next CSW63, in order to contribute to the official statement of the consultation, and developed the following recommendations:

Latin America and the Caribbean countries we are experienced important challenges that require the political will of the governments to redouble their efforts and fulfill the commitments taken under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women – CEDAW, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women – Belem do Pará, the Montevideo Consensus and the 2030 Agenda.

As you have already affirmed, Gender Equality is today the main goal in the world and must be recognized as a good for humanity, therefore, there is an urgent need to protect it from attacks and negative propaganda that inhibit the progress made in terms of gender equality.

Democracy and peace are basic conditions for implementation of human rights, but in some countries of the region, democracy is threatened and violations of the rights of women and girls occur, an even the persecution, attacks, and assassinations of women’s human rights defenders. This situation is worsened by the migration processes and the consequence of refugee crisis that, in our region, is predominantly female.

We are also concerned about the return of neoliberal, pro-market economic policies which feed a development model, based on extractivism, that promotes the accumulation of capital. These policies are incompatible with the sustainability of life and, as evidence has shown, especially harmful to women and girls.

This also threaten the partial progress made in the field of social protection, worsening the situation in terms of coverage, quality of benefits and adequacy of transfers.

Therefore, we believe that the link and articulation between civil society and governments should be strengthened, especially with regard to the effective fulfillment of the rights of women and girls based on the commitments taken.

At such a politically and economically complex time, it is necessary that women’s social movements explore the various mechanisms that block these rights, which include the collective action and budget allocation of the social protection items and the defense of women’s rights, with respect to all diversities.

Due to that which is noted above, and taking into account the theme of the next CSW, we suggest taking into account the following recommendations:

https://unioncsw.world-psi.org/news/latin-america-the-caribbean-civil-society-declaration?lang=en
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PICTURE OF    María Jesús Hernánadez Sánchez 
https://www.instagram.com/mjhdezs?r=nametag

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CALL FOR AN EU FEMINIST STRIKE ON MARCH 8 #8MARS15H40 : FEMINIST STRIKE

March 2, 2019 - Women represent 52% of the European population



Women are cashiers, teachers, maintenance officers, secretaries, nurses, home helpers, nursery assistants, social workers, administrative staff, midwives, hostesses, students… Our business lines
are essential to society. Yet they are poorly paid and their hardship is not recognized.


Women are engineers, technicians, workers, employees or managers. We do the same work as men but with a lower salary.


We are part-time with a part-time salary often because we have no other choice

 Between shopping, cleaning and children, we do an average of 20 hours of household chores per week

 Our work is invisible and devalued. Our salary is 26% lower than that of men. Therefore, from 15:40 we work for free. Every day. 


We are retired and our pension is 40% lower than that of men.


We have been fighting for a long time against the precariousness brought to the forefront with force by the yellow vests.

 We are foreigners, victims of racism, disabled, lesbians, and we suffer from multiple discrimination.

 We are women at work, on the street or at home, we face gender and sexual violence



We are French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Cypriot, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Russian, English, Irish, Belgian, Croatian, Serbian, German, Romanian, Moldovan, Czech, Azeri, Armenian, Turkish, Swiss, Danish, Icelandic, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Latvian, Estonian, and Brazilian, Iranian, Argentinean,  Indian, American, Canadian, Moroccan, Tunisian, Ivorian, Japanese, Chinese, etc.  and we are everywhere in the world in solidarity with all women .


To say that women demand equal rights , our work to be recognized and paid for. To end  violence and guarantee our freedom of choice. To win equality and make our voices heard

These are demands we need to make  to our employers and the government.



We together with other associations call for a feminist strike on March 8, actions of rallies, demonstrations. Let’s disengage at 3:40, Paris hour. Let’s all wear a purple scarf!




PS. We are waiting of the result on the collective complaints against the 15 countries which accept them, for a violation of the European Social Charter on non respect of equal pay for equal job launched by UWE at Strasbourg. European Confederation of Trade Union, EQUINET and European Union are part of the procedure and support it.

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SUDAN – ARBITRARY ARREST OF MORE THAN 60 WOMEN HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS

Since December 2018, people in Sudan have taken to the streets in different parts of the country to protest the rapid deterioration of economic and social conditions. Peaceful demonstrations are still taking place and the Sudanese regime is putting all its efforts to quell the growing movement. Authorities’ have combined their efforts by using various military and security forces, including riot police and the National Security and Intelligence Service (NISS) to silence protesters and disperse protests. Authorities used excessive force, live bullets, rubber bullets, tear gas and other weapons. The regime also blocked Internet access in order to limit and hinder communication between protestors. In addition, The UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, called on authorities to investigate deaths during protests and detention.



Women human rights defenders have been involved in leading these movements. Their important and vital role is proven by the violent and focused targeting of WHRDs by the Sudanese authorities. At least 70 women human rights defenders were arrested over the span of a month, although some of them were released, more than 16 women human rights defenders are still behind bars, among them: Dr. Ihsan Fegeiri, Dr. Amal Jabrallah, Dr. Hiba Omar Ibrahim, Adeela Al-Zaebaq, in addition to lawyers such as Hanan Nour, Hanadi Fadl, Samia Arqawi, Amani Othman, along with prominent journalists  and WHRDs Somia Ishaq, Intisar, Amani Idriss and many others WHRDs that are risking their lives by peacefully participating in protests and demonstrations in their cities.



7 of the detained WHRDs are in need of immediate medical assistance. Some of them haven’t been allowed to access a lawyer, or to be visited by their families for at least 2 weeks. Dr. Heba Omar Ibrahim was arrested on the 13th of Jan and is being pressured by police officers to give names of HRDs and WHRDs active in the health sector, especially the Sudanese Professional Association, which puts her in a very dangerous and critical situation. In addition, WHRD Zainab Badreddine was threatened by police officers over the phone.



The authorities have been using various tactics. For instance, they have released a group of women human rights defenders, for a short period of time (approximately 10 hours) and re-arrested them, and have detained certain WHRDs for two hours or more in order to intimidate and threaten them. In addition, authorities have also arrested a family member or close relatives to the WHRD as a hostage to pressure her to go into police custody. Sudanese police also threatened to kill a WHRD if she took part in the protests. Hospitals, offices and WHRDs’ houses were targeted by gas bombs.



The Sudanese authorities are trying to hinder the work of women human rights defenders in various ways. It seems that the current objective of the regime is to prevent them from being present in the movements and protest areas. This wave of arrest is a continuation of the authorities’ rigorous targeting of WHRDs since the January 2018 protests. At this time last year, 30 women human rights defenders were arrested, some of them are behind bars today as well, especially lawyers, journalists and WHRDs who work on documenting violations.



The Regional Coalition for Women Human Rights Defenders in the Middle East and North Africa (WHRDMENA) believes that the situation is very critical in Sudan. The Sudanese authorities are already violently hostile to women human rights defenders and their presence in public space. The regime has an established system, known as Public Order, to restrict the movement of women and to impede the work of women human rights defenders by forcing them to be isolated and distanced from the spaces of struggle. The capabilities of women human rights defenders in Sudan are restricted, as they are unable to access legal, psychological and medical assistance, especially under detention. WHRDs are frequently subjected to ill-treatment detention centers. During their detention, their social media accounts are often accessed by police officers. In addition, women human rights defenders are currently being subject to violent smearing campaigns, accusing them of dealing with foreign agencies in order to destabilize Sudan’s internal security.



Under such circumstances, the Regional Coalition condemns the brutality of the Sudanese authorities, their lack of commitment to human rights and their continued attacks on women human rights defenders. The Coalition calls on the authorities to end the violence and to immediately and unconditionally release of all women human rights defenders who have been arbitrarily detained, since no charges have been brought against them until now. The regional Coalition also urges the authorities to put an end to the systematic oppression of women human rights defenders in Sudan.



The Regional Coalition is in solidarity with women human rights defenders in Sudan, and salutes their unprecedented struggle and resistance, despite all threats, risks and smearing campaigns. The Coalition, and the world, is watching brave women human rights defenders in Sudan fight back and resist, and risking their lives while doing so.



In the context of the increasing violations of fundamental human rights committed with impunity in Sudan, the Regional Coalition calls on the regional and international community to stand in solidarity and provide sustained support to women human rights defenders through:



– Demanding the authorities to immediately release of all women human rights defenders and to urgently provide them with urgent medical, psychological and legal services.

– Demanding the authorities to end the targeting of women human rights defenders in all its forms.

– Demanding a transparent and independent investigation into torture and ill-treatment in Sudanese prisons and deaths during protests.



https://whrdmena.org/2019/01/18/sudan-arbitrary-arrest-of-more-than-60-women-human-rights-defenders/


Contact: officer@whrdmena.org

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