This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  Whilst we recognise and celebrate the 60 years of work to secure the human rights framework, we are also cognisant of the fact that the implementation and resources to fulfil on the promise of these frameworks still leaves a lot to be desired.

At this particular moment in time, there are constant reminders across the globe that human rights cannot be universal without human rights for women.  That in fact, as women there is even more need now to combine our groundbreaking global and local efforts to challenge gender inequality advocate for women’s rights and the quest to end gender inequality, and to create a world free from violence, discrimination and injustice.

We need to look no further than the escalating crisis in Zimbabwe, the raping and killing of lesbians in South Africa, the forced sterilization of women in Bolivia, and the list goes on and on.  To top it all off, the increasing trend towards criminalisation of HIV transmission, violence against sex workers, short-sighted and short-term strategies to address the HIV epidemic that refuse to take into account the link of violence against women and girls, shows us that we need to scale up our actions, advocacy and we should not let up as the cost to women is too dear. 

As a campaign, we support the call by the Centre for Women’s Global Leadership in the UDHR60 campaign to dedicate the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign 2008 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the UDHR and to make demands to advance women’s human rights.  These areas include:

• Support Women Human Rights Defenders
• End Violence Against Women
• Strengthen Gender Equality Structures in the UN
• Expand Financing for Gender Equality

Yes we can!