Empower Women Seeking Justice & Peace

Thanks to your generous support, WFM-IGP has been able to strengthen and expand its initiatives promoting gender justice and women’s leadership over the past three months. The following report details how WFM-IGP has succeeded in bringing local activists’ perspectives to international forums on justice, sustainable development and women’s rights.

The Assembly of States Parties to the International Criminal Court

Throughout WFM-IGP’s programs and initiatives, we aim to amplify the voices of local activists by providing a platform for them to engage with representatives of states, sub-regional and regional bodies, the organs of the International Criminal Court and the United Nations. For this project in particular, WFM-IGP ensured that women’s voices were equally and fairly represented on issues of gender justice and conflict prevention at the most recent Assembly of States Parties (ASP) session, held in December 2017.

In addition to facilitating the participation of over 450 activists from around the world, WFM-IGP held a number of side events involving civil society, states representatives and ICC court officials on topics such as: gender equality in the International Criminal Court; accountability for sexual and gender-based violence crimes in the Central African Republic, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo and Iraq; and, prosecuting sexual and gender-based violence at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, among others. These discussions are significant in directing the policy of the Assembly of States Parties to the ICC and the Court in the upcoming year. It is therefore extremely impactful to include the perspectives of local women and civil society members, as it helps to ensure a sustainable and effective international justice system going forward.

One important achievement at this year’s ASP session came with the culmination of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court’s Campaign for Fair and Merit-Based Elections of ICC Officials (mentioned in the previous report). The campaign was successful in creating a transparent elections process—which included the input of hundreds of civil society members—and maintaining a gender-balance on the ICC judges’ bench.

The Commission on the Status of Women

The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is the principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women. The CSW is instrumental in promoting women’s rights, documenting the reality of women’s lives throughout the world, and shaping global standards on gender equality and the empowerment of women.

During the Commission’s annual two-week session, representatives of UN Member States, civil society organizations and UN entities gather at UN headquarters in New York to discuss progress and gaps in the implementation of the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the key global policy document on gender equality, as well as emerging issues that affect gender equality and the empowerment of women. Member States agree on further actions to accelerate progress and promote women’s enjoyment of their rights in political, economic and social fields. The outcomes and recommendations of each session are forwarded to ECOSOC for follow-up.

Thanks to the support of partners like you WFM-IGP will be able to ensure the participation of a number of its civil society partners and members from around the world in the events surrounding the CSW session, which will take place from March 12 to 23. In addition to sponsoring women activists during the CSW, WFM-IGP is collaborating with organizations such as UN Women to facilitate side events pertaining to the session’s theme: Challenges and opportunities in achieving gender equality and the empowerment of rural women and girls.

Our Sincere Thanks

Your support has helped us see great progress so far in our fight for gender justice and women's leadership and continues to motivate us to work towards our goals. In addition to WFM-IGP’s global advocacy work, we are working to coordinate and sponsor a number of local initiatives related to gender justice, Women, Peace and Security, and women’s leadership around the world in 2018. We hope you will continue to support this cause by sharing our campaign with friends and family.

Thanks to your generous support, WFM-IGP has been able to strengthen and expand its initiatives promoting gender justice and women’s leadership over the past three months. The following report details two major campaign successes, which your donations have helped us achieve.

Providing Legal Aid and Raising Awareness of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in Uganda

In commemoration of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, the Coalition for the International Criminal Court (a program of WFM-IGP)  partnered with its member Platform for Social Justice in Uganda  in organizing a two-day workshop to fight conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence in Northern Uganda. Working with local partners enables WFM-IGP and its programs to ensure that initiatives reflect a deep understanding of the local context and champion locally-owned solutions.

The workshop in Uganda brought together members of the Justice, Law and Order sector, civil society, and police to identify methods of preventing gender-based violence in families and communities. The project provided free legal advice, as well as confidential HIV/AIDs testing, to invitees from the grassroots communities of Northern Uganda, including community leaders, local councils representatives, community counselors, youth leaders and women leaders. Attendees numbered over 600, more than 400 of which were women and children.

The event was successful in raising awareness of the pervasive problem of conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence in Uganda, providing advice and legal services to vulnerable persons and expanding the network of community activists and leaders in Uganda fighting to end violence against women and children.

Gender-Equal Leadership in the International Criminal Court

One important goal of this campaign was to campaign for the best qualified female candidates to be elected as International Criminal Court judges by the Assembly of States Parties. Women’s leadership in the international justice system is a crucial component in the fight to end impunity for sexual and gender-based crimes.

Throughout the past three months, the Coalition for the International Criminal Court incorporated a gender lens in its Campaign for Fair and Merit-Based Elections of the ICC Officials, calling on States Parties to nominate the best candidates for the posts of judges for election in 2017 during the 16th Session of the ASP. As five of the six outgoing ICC judges were women, the Coalition campaigned to ensure that female candidates were nominated by states in order to maintain fair gender representation on the ICC bench. We urged states to seek out the very best and most qualified female candidates to uphold this fundamental standard.

This week, at the 15th Session of the Assembly of States Parties to the ICC held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, five new women and one man were elected to fill the six vacant ICC judgeships.

For more information on the newly elected judges and the Coalition’s campaign you can read the full article on the CICC website: http://www.coalitionfortheicc.org/icc-judicial-elections

Our Sincere Thanks

Your support has not only helped us see great progress so far in our fight for gender justice and women's leadership but also continues to motivate us to work towards our goals. We hope you will continue to support this cause by sharing our campaign with friends and family.

Wishing you a warm and wonderful holiday season!