Useful Links

INTERNATIONAL LAW – General

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

This website provides a comprehensive coverage of all the relevant international laws and treaties relating to human rights and obligations and also gives information on the human rights committees and special mechanisms.

The United Nations Human Rights Treaty System

This provides detailed information on the UN Human Rights Treaty System including the optional protocols. It describes the complaint procedure in detail and also provides the forms for the complaint submission.

International Centre for the Legal Protection of Human Rights (Interights)

This is an international human rights legal centre working towards the enhancement and protection of the human rights and freedoms in Africa, South and Central Europe and South Asia. The website contains an extensive database of caselaws of the Commonwealth countries, European Court of Human Rights as well as the US laws.

CEDAW AND WOMEN’S RIGHTS

International Women’s Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific (IWRAW Asia Pacific)

This international women’s organization facilitates dialogue and debates on progressive implementation of CEDAW. Its programmes include capacity building, creation of learning tools for application of a rights based approach that facilitate compliance of CEDAW and human rights norms and standards within the national jurisdictions. The website allows access to dialogues, updates on CEDAW, country reviews and international campaigns on the implementation of CEDAW.

UN Division for the Advancement of Women

It works toward the improvement in the status of women worldwide and strives to achieve substantive equality between men and women through the effective implementation of CEDAW. The website contains all the CEDAW Committee reports and Sessions’ reports, country reports on its implementation as well as gender agendas of the General Assembly annual sessions.

United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)

UNIFEM is the women’s division of the United Nations System that provides economic and technical assistance for the promotion of women’s empowerment, gender mainstreaming as well as socio-economic security. The website consists of all UNIFEM publications relating to various campaigns conducted for the advancement of women, including on CEDAW, as well as audio and video materials. It also contains region specific materials on the same produced by its regional offices.

WOMEN’S HUMAN RIGHTS – Concerns, Analysis and Perspectives

Women Human Rights Net

This website provides a comprehensive list of organizations working in the field of women’s human rights and freedoms and contains detailed information about the numerous international institutions and discusses issues, updates and perspectives from across the world.

Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID)

This is an international membership organization that promotes and fosters gender equality, sustainable development and women’s human rights through interventions at policy, institutional and individual level. Their website contains information on international campaigns, discussions and analysis related to women’s rights and leadership. It also provides a database on international women’s organizations.

Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD)

This organization provides an analysis of the social, economic, political and cultural issues affecting women’s rights in Asia and the Pacific, and focuses on the relevance of human rights law to the protection and promotion of gender inequality in the region. Besides having various publications documenting the lives and struggles of women in Asia-Pacific, and a case digest on women’s rights from the region, it provides information, perspectives and campaigns relating to women rights.

Center for Women’s Global Leadership

This is a centre for leadership development and women’s human rights education. The website contains an extensive source of articles relating to international law, UN advocacy resources, research tools and links to other women’s rights organizations.

The Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Women’s Rights (CLADEM)

This is a women’s and women’s organizations’ network that operate in Latin America and in the Caribbeans and is committed to achieve an effective defense of women’s rights in the region. The website has an excellent documentation centre containing all legislations of Latin American countries regarding women’s rights and empowerment as well as alternative CEDAW reports by these countries.

Equality Now

The organization collates and documents information regarding violence and discrimination against women from across the world. It mobilises international support to put the questions of gross human rights violations against women at the centre of the human rights discourse. The website contains the actions and campaigns against violence on women and girls.

Feminist Majority Foundation

This organization committed to women’s equality, reproductive health, and non-violence, and seeks to improve the legal, social, and political status of women through public policy development, public education programs, grassroots organizing projects and leadership training programs. The website includes information on various feminist journals, women’ studies programs, archives on feminist history as well as laws and case analysis.

Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF)

This network of women’s organization in Africa seeks to link law with development so as to empower women and facilitate advancement of women’s rights. It contains publications, updates, campaigns and perspectives on women’s rights from Africa and contains information on its member organizations in the region.

THEMATIC ISSUES

Alternative Sexualities

International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA)

This is an international coalition of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) individuals, communities and organisations demanding equal rights, dignity and the implementation of non-discriminatory public policies and laws to end the marginalization of the LGBTs.

Voices Against 377

This is a New Delhi based coalition of collectives and progressive organisations that campaign and protest against the continuing existence of the colonial law of Section 377 in the Indian Penal Code (1860) which forbids consensual same sex sexual conduct between adults, labeled as “unnatural sex”. It documents and highlights the discrimination to LGBT arising from the penal provision and contains resources that help challenge this discrimination.

Violence Against Women

Domestic Violence Laws of the World

It provides links to the domestic violence laws of various countries.

End Violence against Women

This site contains documentation and communication materials produced in the worldwide struggle to end violence against women including policy documentation, articles and publications, training materials and curricula, and videos, brochures, and posters related to violence against women.

V-Day Worldwide Campaign

It is a global movement to stop violence against women and conducts worldwide campaigns to raise awareness to stop violence against women and girls, including rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation (FGM) and sexual slavery. The site contains anti violence resources, links and a list of publications.

Lawyers Collective

This organization promotes gender justice through the medium of public interest litigation (PIL) and legal aid in India. The site contains material on the campaign for domestic violence law, and other forms of gender based violence in India. It contains publications and reports on the same themes.

Women’s Aid Organisation

This organization is dedicated to ending violence against women and in particular against domestic violence in Malaysia. The website contains the national law against domestic violence, self-help resources for women survivors of violence as well as resources to enable support providers to help survivors of violence.

Fundamentalisms and Cultural Identity Politics

Women Living Under Muslim Law (WLUML)

This is an international solidarity network providing information, publications, debates to support women whose lives are shaped or governed by laws and customs said to derive from Islam. It contains feminist perspectives, articles and analysis exposing the power politics of fundamentalism, cultural identity politics and religion that seeks to control women bodies, their rights and freedoms.

Sisters in Islam

This women’s organization based in Malaysia works to promote women’s rights within the framework of Islam, through interpreting Islam through its core principles of equality, justice, freedom and dignity. It undertakes advocacy and legal services as well as public education and research on rights of women. The website provides resources including recommended books and articles and its own publications exploring the compatibility between women’s rights and Islam.

Links for NGOs and Social Movements in India