Partner Organizations
Fundación Justicia y Género
Founded in 1990, the Fundación Justicia y Género is based in Costa Rica and works throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. The Program centers its work around the elimination of gender inequality and violence against women from a criminal and human rights perspective, doing research and training on the intersectional forms of discrimination against diverse groups of women, on men and masculinities, analyzing laws and legal doctrine and training judges, police, lawyers and women’s groups in the human rights of women and the incorporation of gender sensitive perspectives in the analysis of legal texts and contexts. The Fundación is the institutional home of the WHRI.
Colectivo Ix’Pop, Guatemala
Colectivo Ix Pop is a collective of indigenous and mestiza women and allies representing a range of organizations in Guatemala along with international partners. Our primary objective is to unite our forces to strengthen the exercise of human rights by women and indigenous women in Guatemala. We engage in capacity-building with a focus on gender, human rights and cultural belonging, and also engage in political advocacy at national and international level to visibilize the struggles of women and to generate alliances for the defence of our rights. One of our main joint activities involves the petition for a CEDAW General Recommendation on the rights of indigenous women that recognizes the specific intersectional issues and impacts of violence faced by indigenous women within their particular cultural contexts. Current member organizations include: Asociación Maya Uk’ ux B’e, Tik Na’oj, el Equipo de estudios Comunitarios y Acción Psicosocial ECAP, JASS-Asociadas por lo Justo, WHRI
Women’s Solidarity Fund
The Women’s Solidarity Fund supports women fighting against gender-based inequality, with a focus on the Caucasus region and Turkey. WSF strives to make women’s voices heard and create an open space where women can claim their rights, participate in decision making processes and to be integrated in peace- building and post-conflict reconciliation. Women’s Solidarity Fund collaborates with the WHRI to offer capacity-building programs involving women advocates from their regions of work, and has collaborated on research and documentation of feminist activist strategies in Armenia.
CEDAW Committee of Trinidad and Tobago (CCoTT)
The CEDAW Committee of Trinidad and Tobago (CCoTT) is a non-governmental organization committed to stakeholder advocacy for the implementation of the CEDAW convention and its mandates, through collaboration, education, development, advocacy and wisdom sharing in Trinidad and Tobago.
JASS Mesoamerica
JASS is dedicated to strengthening the voice, visibility, and collective organizing power of women to create a just, sustainable world for all. Feminist movement-building and popular education strategies combine innovative learning, organizing, communications and action that equip and energize activists, expand alliances and mobilize women’s movements for greater political influence and to ensure the safety of activists in an increasingly risky world. WHRI has partnered with JASS Mesoamerica on capacity-building in the region and through the alliance of organizations supporting the movement for a General Recommendation to CEDAW on Indigenous Women.
ECADE – Eastern Caribbean Alliance for Diversity and Equality
The Eastern Caribbean Alliance for Diversity and Equality (ECADE) is an independent umbrella organisation with the goal to strengthen regional capacity for the defence and full recognition of human rights through intersectional collaboration, training, network expansion, development of grassroots HRDs and organisations and sensitisation of policymakers, legislators, government and service providers, with a focus on representing the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex communities. ECADE works with human rights groups to strengthen institutional capacity and provide a platform to strategise and work towards equality within the eastern Caribbean.
Women and Youth Education Institute
The Women and Youth Educational Institute (WAYEI) is an Africa-wide organisation
dedicated to advancing the human and democratic rights of African women and youth in
a society with a deeply rooted patriarchal culture inherited from the past and still
perpetuated in various dimensions today. The WAYEI works with other global co-
thinkers to mainstream women’s human rights in policies and politics. In this regard,
we rely on international and regional human rights frameworks to strengthen previous
gains of African women’s struggles for equality of rights, inclusion, political participation and socio-economic equality.
Past & Current Funders
Channel Foundation promotes women’s human rights by funding intersecting streams of the global movement for gender equality. Channel Foundation has long supported scholarships for women’s human rights defenders from the Global South to participate in WHRI capacity-building programs, and was an early supporter of the CEDAW Indigena programs and the initiative for a CEDAW General Recommendation on the rights of Indigenous Women.
The Canadian Union of Public Employees is Canada’s largest union, with over 680,000 members across the country. CUPE represents workers in health care, emergency services, education, early learning and child care, municipalities, social services, libraries, utilities, transportation, airlines and more.
Global Fund for Women
Open Society Foundations
Institutional Partners
Institute for Gender and Development Studies (IGDS), University of the West Indies
The Institute for Gender and Developments Studies (IGDS) produces and disseminates knowledge on gender-related issues in the Caribbean in order to enhance Caribbean development. IGDS offers courses in gender across faculties within the University of the West Indies at undergrad and postgrad levels, engage in collaborative research projects on gender in all areas of society, and offer outreach activities including workshops, seminars and networking events. IGDS is the host of WHRI’s collaborative CEDAW South to South program held in Trindad and Tobago.
Instituto de Altos Estudios Nacionales – National Institute for Higher Learning
El Instituto de Altos Estudios Nacionales (IAEN) is a public university based in Quito, Ecuador. IAEN offers graduate programs in Public Management and Administration, International Relations, Security Studies and a broad range of taylor-fitted programs for continuing education directed to public servants. IAEN is the host of the WHRI Intensive program in Spanish.
International Human Rights Program, University of Toronto
The International Human Rights Program (IHRP) at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law enhances the legal protection of existing and emerging international human rights obligations through advocacy, knowledge-exchange, and capacity-building initiatives that provide experiential learning opportunities for students and legal expertise to civil society. IHRP is the host of the CEDAW for Change Institute in Toronto.
Additional Partnerships & Project Co-Conveners
United & Strong, St Lucia
United and Strong is a LGBTQI rights organization with a special focus on LBTQ women. United & Strong works at the local level in the Caribbean but also works in the area of SOGI (sexual orientation and gender identity) rights at the United Nations, and engages in trainings for activists and human rights defenders. United & Strong staff have trained with the WHRI and collaboratively offer workshops on LBT women and SOGI rights.
Institute for Human Rights Communication Nepal (IHRICON)
IHRICON is a human rights organization with a focus on the empowerment of women and children in Nepal. They engage in a wide variety of programs, including training, to support civil society and grassroots organizations’ human rights work. IHRICON was the WHRI partner organization for offering the 2014 Institute in Kathmandu.
Due Diligence Project
The Due Diligence Project (DDP) is a project undertaken by the International Human Rights Initiative (IHRI) to develop the Due Diligence Framework on State Accountability to Eliminate Violence against Women with the purpose of adding meaning and content to the international principle of due diligence, which obligates States to prevent, protect, prosecute, punish and provide redress for human rights violations committed by the State or non-State actors and apply this Framework to specific contexts and realities around the world. WHRI and the DDP have collaborated on capacity building and research projects.
Fuerza de Mujeres Wayuu – Wayuu Women’s Force
The “Wayuu Women’s Force” is a grassroots NGO representing the needs of Indigenous Wayuu women from La Guajira, Colombia, the traditional territory of the Wayuu. With the support of the WHRI, the Fuerza executed trainings for indigenous women on CEDAW in Colombia, and coordinated the drafting and submission of a Shadow Report on Indigenous women in Colombia at the October 2013 CEDAW session. Fuerza co-founder Wayunkerra (Karmen Ramirez Boscan) is part of the WHRI team, specializing in the intersections between CEDAW and Indigenous women’s rights.
Alianza de Mujeres Indigenas para la CEDAW/Indigenous Women’s Alliance for CEDAW
The Indigenous Women’s Alliance for CEDAW, born from a workshop convened in Guatemala in 2013, brought together a partnership of indigenous and ally organizations who joined together with the objective of building knowledge around the specificity of indigenous women’s human rights, and to mobilize a movement petitioning the CEDAW Committee to undertake the development of General Recommendation specific to Indigenous women. Having obtained the initial objective, with a response of great interest and commitment from individual CEDAW Committee members and other organizations, the Alliance formally disbanded in 2018, with new networks emerging and each organization carrying the work forward in their own capacity.
Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan
The Korean Council works towards a just resolution of the issue of women forced into military sexual slavery by the Japanese government and the prevention of wartime sexual violence. Just resolution of the issue includes acknowledgment of war crimes, formal apology and legal reparation, investigation of truth, and punishment of the perpetrators. The WHRI has collaborated with the Korean Council on actions at the UN, as well as additional advocacy and educational initiatives.
Centre for Women’s Studies in Education
The Centre for Women’s Studies in Education was an interdisciplinary feminist research and knowledge-building centre at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto between 1983 – 2018. The CWSE housed and was an important institutional partner for the Women’s Human Rights Education Institute from its inception in 2004 until 2018, when it was disbanded by the university. For many years international participants of WHRI programs enjoyed access to the university space and facilities through CWSE support.