Affirming Women’s Human Rights

Resources for Faith-Based Organizations

The articles that compose this publication come from presentations at the Women’s Human Rights Advocacy Training for Faith-Based Organizations and articulate both the religious aspect, grounded in theology, and the human rights dimension, with its standards and working methods.

The objective of this ongoing training is to strengthen capacity to advocate for women’s human rights from a faith perspective. It equips churches and Faith-Based Organizations (FBOs) to better understand and make contributions as civil society actors through the use of specific instruments of the United Nations (UN), in particular those designed to protect and promote women and girls’ dignity and rights.

With this in mind, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) plays a pivotal role within the publication. The potential of CEDAW to galvanize actions from the governmental and non-governmental sectors at the national level, and the learning curve that this dynamic represents for other countries with similar challenges, is undeniable.

We hope that women and men working in church contexts, as well as those engaged with FBOs in the humanitarian and development fields will find this publication useful. The content is enriched, among others, by concrete examples on the use of mechanisms such as the Universal Periodic Review to leverage women’s human rights and methodologies like the Theatre of the Oppressed to address gender norms and topics -like sexual and gender-based violence- that may be difficult to discuss otherwise.

The Women’s Human Rights Advocacy Training is a joint initiative of:

• The Lutheran World Federation
• World Council of Churches
• Church of Sweden
• Finn Church Aid
• Mission 21

Languages: English