Human Rights Community — Preparing for the Next Major Crisis

To turn the AU Convention on Ending Violence Against Women and Girls into meaningful action demands all hands on deck to dismantle violence against women and girls and amplify the voices of survivors. The current call for a structured review highlight the need for stakeholder consultation to address gaps in implementation, particularly concerning Article 14.

Amidst environments burning with hostility, violence, harassment, criminalisation, and political repression, the human rights workforce operates at front and rear under pressure. Coupled with experiences of injustice, urgency and institutional pressure, their psychological well-being is often threatened, at times to a disabling degree.

Environmental rights defenders have been recognised as human rights defenders. This mitigates the costly daily price of being frontline against environmental destruction, which regularly results in a disproportionate toll on mental health and in loss of lives.