Human Rights
The FAWCO Human Rights Team is a comprehensive network of advocates working to ensure human rights for all women. The Team will keep members aware of new developments impacting women’s rights, including UN updates, through Human Rights Team Bulletins and other publications. We also engage FAWCO Members in awareness and action campaigns.
It is our goal to leverage FAWCO’s unique strength as a global women’s organization to help end violence and discrimination against women and girls.
Team Committees include:
Economic Empowerment for Women
Ending Violence Against Women
Political Empowerment for Women
Women in Peace and Conflict
Learn more about the issues and download information sheets to share with your club members on the Committee pages.
For current information on resources to aid refugees, please visit the FAWCO UN Team's
Current Initiatives page.
All FAWCO members are invited to get involved in their area of interest. If you don’t see yours here, let us know. Please email Therese Hartwell, Chair of the Human Rights Team at to discuss participation.
And sign up to receive the Human Rights Team Bulletin at Subscriptions.
Therese Hartwell, AW Eastern Province
Chair, Human Rights Team
Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos
After living in Chile for four months and adjusting to the vastly different cultural and language barriers, I thought it time to continue my contributions to FAWCO. Be warned, this is the first extensive writing I have done in English since my arrival, so please pardon any adjective reversals or paragraphs of complete...
All around the world, women and men, girls and boys will be joining together on February 14 to RISE against violence against women. You can be a part of it. Go to www.onebillionrising.org and look for an event in your community. A truly inspriing film about One Billion Rising 2013 shows you what rising and dancing looks like, how wonderful and...
Read a UN Women Report detailing the impacts on women of the UN Millenium Development Goals here -- there's more work to be done.
For an overview of the areas covered by FAWCO's Human Rights Team, read this article about the priority issues that UN Women is addressing: A Global Goal on Gender Equality, Women’s Rights and Women’s Empowerment: From the sidelines to the centre (by Lakshmi Puri, UN Women, Assistant Secretary-General of the UN, May 2013). UNWomenOnWomensRights.pdf
Subcategories
Ending Violence Against Women is a Committee of the Human Rights Team, addressing issues of domestic violence and sex trafficking, as well as other forms of violence against women. The Ending Violence Team was created in April 2008 to address issues of domestic violence, human trafficking and sexual exploitation in order to increase awareness and empower those women and children affected. Over the years, the Team has put a spotlight on the issues to get people talking about them. We also promote tangible actions that we can all take to help eradicate these forms of violence. When you look at the facts you see that we still have a long way to go.
1 in 3 women has been sexually assaulted in her lifetime;
Rape continues to be used as a weapon during war and conflict;
Globalization and climate change are having the most profound impacts on women and children who are disproportionately displaced and left without options;
Gender-based violence is an affliction that millions of women and children suffer in silence and shame. Many become victimized by those who are supposed to love and protect them.
Please share these three one-page information sheets on issues of Domestic Violence, how you can help victims of Domestic Violence, and global issues of Violence Against Women with your club members.
For a worldwide listing of domestic violence agencies, see the Hot Peaches website.
You'll find a link to the Americans Overseas Domestic Violence Crisis Center (AODVC) website on our homepage under Domestic Violence.
For more information or to get involved, contact the Committee Co-Chairs.
Co-Chair, Global Issues, Tonya Teichert at .
Tonya Teichert (AWC The Taunus)
Co-Chair, Global Issues
Co-Chair, Domestic Violence and AODVC Liaison, Karen Lewis at aodvc@fawco.org.
Karen Lewis (FAUSA)
Co-Chair, Domestic Violence and AODVC Liaison
Women Peace and Security is a committee within the Human Rights Team. Its goal is to raise awareness about violence against women in conflict zones and the role of women in the peace-keeping process.
The theme of women and conflict resonates with the very origins of FAWCO. According to The Red Book, FAWCO: A History 1931-2011:
Caroline Curtis Brown founded FAWCO on the belief that "enlightened women, working cooperatively throughout the world, could do much to help achieve permanent international peace; and that this was especially true of American women living abroad who had acquired special experience in living in foreign lands among foreign people and foreign customs. Their American clubs not only provided a home away from home, she felt, but also served to promote sympathetic awareness of the needs and problems in countries other than the United States." Our founder's words are perhaps even more relevant today than in her own time. In our globally connected world, wars have a real impact on the lives of all of us, even when they occur in a distant land. A peaceful world benefits everyone.