Strategic litigation is an innovative and integral advocacy approach which uses the justice system to bring about legal and policy change as well as create public awareness on human rights violations.
By Mendi Njonjo, Regional Director, Hivos East Africa As the rest of the world continued with information exchanges online, a wall of silence fell on citizens of Nigeria on Friday, June 4, 2021. The federal government announced a ban on Twitter, leading to a full blackout affecting millions of users that is now entering its […]
2021 marks 40 years since the first case of AIDS was reported in the world, signalling the rise of an epidemic that is not a respecter of geographic location, gender, race, ethnicity or age. In fact, low income countries have been worst hit with extreme impact on vulnerable populations such as women and the youth. […]
The 10th anniversary edition of RightsCon is taking place next week. The (online) event brings together business leaders, human rights defenders, government representatives, technologists, and journalists from around the world to tackle the most pressing issues at the intersection of human rights and technology. Issues that are also high on Hivos’ change agenda. This year, Hivos […]
Hivos expresses our very deep concern over the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel. The latest outbreak of hostilities was triggered by efforts to forcibly displace Palestinian families in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem. While Hivos does not have program and operational presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, […]
How it started When we started the Women Empowered for leadership (WE4L) program we had to first acknowledge that women across the world, especially in our focus countries, experience obstacles that limit their chances to seek leadership positions in civic organizations, political parties, and public institutions. This, in turn, has limited women’s ability to put […]
Hivos through its Regional SRHR Fund, on Tuesday May 18th 2021 launched the Consent to Access Campaign (#Consent2Access). The Campaign is aimed at promoting adolescent access to Sexual Reproductive Health (SRH) information and services. The campaign aims to achieve this through advocacy for improved laws, policies and practices on age of consent for adolescent access […]
The free exchange of information, and the ability of journalists to exercise their right to freedom of expression and to find out facts, are essential in a healthy democracy. It is often their work, uncovering the truth and holding those in positions of power to account, that helps citizens make informed decisions and likewise demand […]
Today is IDAHOT, the International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia. Thirty-one years ago today, May 17 was chosen to commemorate the World Health Organization’s decision to declassify homosexuality as a mental illness. At about the same time, Hivos started working with the LGBTIQ+ communities. Initially, we partnered with organizations to respond to the HIV/AIDS […]
For the second time, we celebrate the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia during the Covid-19 pandemic. As we reflected last year, the LGBTIQ+ community has been disproportionately impacted. Limited access to economic support programs and redirection of funds means that the longer this pandemic lasts, the harder it will be for the LGBTIQ+ […]
The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted people’s lives socially and economically in a global challenge the likes of which we haven’t seen in decades. While many governments were swift to implement economic stimulus packages, lockdowns and curfews, marginalized groups such as LGBTIQ+ persons, women and sex workers found themselves at the margins of these responses and […]
Amani, My Friend, the prototype of an interactive digital game, has won a friendly competition between master’s students studying media design at the University of Design and Applied Arts of Geneva (HEAD). The competition aimed to support the development of virtual tools which foster the exchange of information on HIV and sexual health among adolescent […]