60th Anniversary of Human Rights Day

Today, on Human Rights Day, we reach the end of our blogging series, 16 Days 16 Entries.  Over these past days, you’ve read as Yifat, Natalia and Diana have shared some of the stories, ideas and solutions that have come out of more than 25 years of MADRE’s work.  We’ve seen how gender violence impacts communities worldwide and how women have organized to confront it. 

These stories are just a few among many.  While we still have a lot of work to do to end gender violence and to protect women’s human rights, we know that women across the planet are already forging a path.  On Human Rights Day, the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we honor the work of human rights activists and we commit to continue our work in this global effort.

Here in the US, the latest election created new opportunities for progressive work, and we must seize them.  We must push the new administration to join the Human Rights Council at the UN and to finally ratify the Rome Statute, the treaty that founded the International Criminal Court.  We live in an age of global challenges—from the economic crisis to the reality of climate change—and these require global cooperation.  Such multilateral efforts have certainly not been the hallmark of the Bush administration, and that needs to change now.

MADRE has always rooted its work in the principle of partnership and cooperation with community-based women’s organizations around the world.  We’ve built connections that advance the agenda for human rights around the world and that make concrete changes in the lives of women and their families.  We have made women’s human rights our priority, and we expect the Obama administration to do the same.  We hope you’ll join us in making this call.

Sincerely,

Vivian Stromberg

Previous entries in the 16 Days 16 Entries Series:

• Fighting Feminicide: From Iraq to Guatemala
• Women Farmers and Economic Empowerment
• A Village that Banned Violence against Women
• Human Rights Activist Abducted
• Resources on Violence against Women across the Globe
• Women’s Organizing in Colombia
• How Much is a Woman’s Life Worth?
• “One of the Worst Places in the World to Be a Woman”
• On World AIDS Day, Support the Full Range of Women's Human Rights
• Feminist Storytelling
• Defenders Protecting Human Rights with their Lives
• Zimbabwean Women Demand
• Violence against Indigenous Women
• Strange (and Dangerous) Bedfellows
• 16 Days, 16 Entries