Advocating for Human Rights

Human Rights Advocacy

WLP’s partners have been engaged in dozens of human rights and women’s rights campaigns over the last two decades. In collaboration with the WLP Partnership, many of these campaigns have grown from local crusades into regional movements, and from regional movements into international campaigns. 

One of WLP’s top priorities is to provide greater visibility for our partners’ local and regional human rights campaigns. We help our partners support each other’s campaigns through pooling resources and mobilizing their constituents. We engage with traditional media, educate our supporter networks through online communications, create films, and publish resources that tell our partners’ advocacy stories. Whenever possible, WLP promotes our partners’ participation on panels at international conferences and at other speaking events. We bring experienced leaders and grassroots women into frequent contact with funders, activists, and scholars who can help them grow their women’s movements. 

Claiming Equal Citizenship Campaign

Women’s right to equal citizenship is guaranteed by the majority of Arab constitutions, as well as by international law. Yet across the MENA region and the Gulf, women are denied their right to a nationality – a crucial component of citizenship. In many of these countries, women who marry men of other nationalities cannot confer their nationality on their husbands or children; only fathers can confer their nationality on their wives and children. 

The impact of statelessness on children can be dire, especially in countries that provide social, educational, and health services only to their own nationals. Children born to fathers who are not citizens can suffer from poverty and low education, and are vulnerable to economic and other exploitation. 

WLP’s partners have been engaged in the Claiming Equal Citizenship campaign for over a decade. We have led rallies, produced radio and television programs, provided legal representation to affected families, met with legislators, and led workshops to educate grassroots activists on how to change the citizenship laws in their countries. 

Economic Rights and Empowerment

WLP’s partners, particularly in Africa, Central Asia, and the Middle East, are working on advocacy objectives that support women’s economic rights and empowerment. These education campaigns cover a range of related issues from women’s rights to banking, borrowing, and investing, to equal access to jobs, equal pay for equal work, and alternative business models and business collectives that promote women’s economic advancement. 

Equal Land and Inheritance Rights for Women

In some communities, old traditions hold more sway over inheritance practices than the national laws. WLP’s partners help women in both urban and rural setting who must fight for land that is legally theirs. In Lagos, Nigeria, our partner is helping women who have been illegally dispossessed of their property or their lawful use of land has been disrupted. Our partner in Morocco has worked for decades with Soulaliyate women, whose rights to their communities’ collective lands has been eroded as land is sold, and the profits shared only among men. In Senegal, our partner is advocating for rural women to play a more prominent role in decisions affecting climate change, and in promoting sustainable livelihoods for women in regions that are most deeply impacted. 

Family Law Reform to End Violence against Women

In 2016, the WLP Partnership launched an international research and advocacy project to reform discriminatory family laws. Our research is drawing attention to the many linkages between discriminatory family laws and the levels of violence towards women in some societies. We are finding that where women are more equal in practice and under the law, there is less violence against women. 

Read more about Reforming Family Laws.