Ketty Nivyabandi, Amnesty Int’l Canada [Photo Credit: Dave Chan]
As we approach International Women's Day, I am called to reflect on the extraordinary courage of women human rights defenders around the world who are leading, organizing, and resisting injustice in the face of unprecedented pressure and risk. Women like Yanar Mohammed, gunned down only last week outside her home in Baghdad.
As authoritarian practices gain ground globally, we are facing a global, coordinated, and well-funded crackdown against hard-fought human rights gains. History reminds us that gendered violence has so often been used as a political tool to divide society and concentrate power.
Women who speak out face harassment, surveillance, detention and physical harm. Economic exclusion is used to limit their independence, and digital spaces are manipulated to silence their voices.
In Afghanistan, women have been systematically erased from public life. Girls who could attend school only a few years ago are now forbidden to do so. Women working to provide for their families and drive forward progress are now forced to remain at home, venturing out only when a male companion is present.
In Canada, the rights of Indigenous women to live in safety and raise families in traditional manners to keep cultures alive are threatened by apathy and antiquated laws designed to suppress their identities and rights.
And yet—despite all such odds stacked against us—women remain the most integral of threads in the social, economic, cultural, and political fabric of life everywhere.
Women the world over are pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable. Of what we will tolerate.
In Ecuador, the Guerreras por la Amazonía remind us that women and girls of all ages are fierce defenders of their homes and communities. In Mexico, women have led the search for thousands of disappeared people and continue their pursuit for truth and justice, in the face of unrelenting threat.
I am firm believer in the power of women to reshape our world. To all the women across the globe fighting against immense odds to protect the rights of all, we salute your courage, but we do not salute it from the sidelines. We salute it in solidarity and action alongside you.
-Ketty | Ketty Nivyabandi is the Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada.
Image: Unsplash
