HRIA and Women’s Human Rights - Background Information

Across the world, civil society organisations are working to improve the lives of women. They know that rights of women are affected by many different factors; e.g. lack of access to care, lack of education, cultural norms, violence or even environmental pollution. There are several human rights treaties in place that protect the rights of women. They contain obligations for states to respect, protect and fulfill the rights of women.

The Women Human Rights programme works on diverse factors that affect women’s lives. We use Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) tools as a starting point for improving their situation. The priorities right now are: health rights of women, domestic violence and anti-trafficking measures.   

Conference on 9 December 2010

On the 9^th of December, Aim for human rights’ partners from all over the world have met in Amsterdam to share best practices and to make plans to continue the implementation of HRIA tools. Although Aim for human rights has to close its doors, that does not mean that the work on HRIA stops.

Launch of the RighT Guide

The conference started with the launch of the RighT Guide, a tool to assess the human rights impact of anti-trafficking laws, policies and practices. The tool was developed by Aim in cooperation with project partners La Strada International, La Strada Czech Republic and Scot-Pep (UK). It was tested by organisations working in the field of trafficking, sex workers rights and migrants’ rights.

Cees Flinterman, member of UN CEDAW committee, is presented with The RighT guide

Workshops

After lunch, there were workshops on the three Human Rights Impact Assessment tools. Organisations that used the RighT Guide, DOVA, the human rights compliance instrument on Domestic Violence and HeRWAI, the Health Rights of Women Assessment Instrument, presented their experiences and best practices in using these tools.

Rights for Change (R4C)

The conference ended with the presentation of a new initiative: Rights for Change. After closure of Aim for human rights, R4C, founded by two (former) employees and two independent consultants, will secure and continue the work on human rights impact assessment. They will also continue this website www.humanrightsimpact.org See for more information the R4C brochure.

Working method

It is not easy to make the connection between what is written down in human rights treaties and what is happening in real lives of women. Therefore, the basis of our working method is the strengthening of knowledge and use of women’s human rights by our local partners. We develop Human Rights Impact Assessment methods that enable organisations to examine and check the implementation of women’s human rights by their governments conform their human rights obligations. These methods provide our partners with better information and stronger arguments to improve the rights of women in their country.

The Human Rights Impact Resource Centre offers our programme the opportunity to support our partners worldwide in their work. We provide online workspaces on our different issues, stimulate knowledge exchange between organisations & countries, have discussion via our discussion board, share best practices and case studies and provide essential resources.  

For more information on the Women's Human Rights Programme please visit: http://www.aimforhumanrights.org/themes/women-s-human-rights/