Around the world, women human rights defenders —women, trans, and non-binary people working for gender equality, sexual rights, territorial justice, and bodily autonomy— face forms of violence that are not random, but widespread. Criminalization, digital harassment, smear campaigns, and physical violence specifically target them because they are women and because of the work they do. Being a defender involves a double exposure: that which arises from political work and that which comes from existing in a body that the system seeks to control.
We accompany the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition in the preparation of a global report on their situation through a methodology that gathers stories, voices, and experiences from the defenders themselves. Thus, the process combines in-depth interviews, spaces for collective reflection, and documentation of stories co-constructed with the protagonists. A systemic analysis that examines how power, repression, and care interconnect across contexts, territories, and identities.
From a feminist, decolonial, and intersectional perspective, we seek to understand the threats defenders face, how the systems that produce them operate, and how the defenders themselves transform them.