Press and Publications

Today, as the United Nations begins its annual gathering on women’s rights, a coalition of international women’s, LGBTIQ, and immigrant justice organizations have launched a joint initiative called: No Borders on Gender Justice.

We the undersigned organizations write to express our deep concerns about the latest restrictions on civil society participation at the 2017 UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) meetings. This year's CSW is taking place under the shadow of the United States’ escalated anti-immigrant, anti-refugee, and anti-Muslim policies, which are preventing some women from exercising their right to political participation at UN Headquarters in New York. The policies represent the latest in a long history of restrictive migration, refugee and asylum measures that subject women and their families to hate crimes, detention, deportation and family separation, while undermining core universal human rights regarding migrant and refugee rights, and worker protections. These circumstances emphasize the urgent need for women facing multiple discriminations to be at the center of conversations on human rights at CSW.

“It makes us happy that we hear the men from our communities are listening to the radio and saying ‘no more violence’ and acknowledging that women have rights.” This is how Luisa Ruiz* described the change brought to her community by the “Voices of the Women of Wangki Tangni” project, which established the first radio station to focus on women’s rights in the North Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua.

At the end of last year, MADRE traveled to Nicaragua to meet with women who take part in Harvesting Hope. That’s the Indigenous women’s farming project you support on the impoverished north coast of Nicaragua. We visited the community of Kisalaya, where we meet with women farmers to discuss the challenges they face and how they work together to overcome them. 

Thank you for helping us offer healing to sexual violence survivors in Colombia. 

Today, Trump reinstated the Global Gag Rule by executive order, and with the stroke of a pen, attacked the reproductive rights of women across the world.

As we start 2017, we’re gearing up to confront the many challenges we know we will face, in the US and around the world.

With just days left before the new year, and only weeks left before Trump’s inauguration, many of us are thinking about what we can do, right now, to shore up our movements, strengthen progressive organizations and defend our values.

Eunice is a young community health worker in Kenya. Her work with the Indigenous Information Network, MADRE's partner organization, brings her to communities to talk with women and families about their needs.

With your help, MADRE joins together with courageous activists around the world. I know a better world is possible because, with you and our grassroots partners, we’re building it.

Many in the US are emerging from their initial shock at the outcome of the presidential election to confront its likely impacts: a legitimation of right-wing identity politics, worsening climate change and militarism, assaults on women’s rights and LGBT rights, and the gutting of basic public services.