Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRDs) are women active in human rights defence generally as well as those active in the defence of women's and LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex) rights. WHRDs face specific risks and vulnerabilities because of their gender, and because the rights that they fight for often threaten social and cultural norms placing them at greater risk of attack and retaliation, as a result. This often places them at greater risk than their male colleagues and vulnerable to different/specific violations of their rights. Furthermore, WHRDs living in particular contexts (such as environments where fundamentalisms and extremism are prevalent or conflict situations) face additional specific risks and vulnerabilities.

The idea of Women Human Rights Defenders Resource Book came out of the urgent need shared among the participants of the International Consultation on WHRDs held in Colombo in 2005. It aims to:

1. Generate interest and understanding among WHRDs which will empower and build solidarity;
2. Bring recognition and legitimacy to the work of WHRDs within the broader human rights community;
3. Be a tool to build capacity of WHRDs:

a. To understand their rights as contained in the Declaration on HRDs;

b. To identify and document the violations and risks of WHRDs and the environment that impedes their ability to carry out their work taking into account gender specificities of violations and risks

c. To identify existing modes of protection and develop advocacy strategies around this (considering best practices, gaps, lessons learnt).

APWLD is coordinating the production of the Resource Book which is a collaborative work with international, regional and national organisations, including the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR), INFORM (Sri Lanka) and Komnas Perempuan (Indonesia).

A group of resource persons met to refine the purpose and objectives as well as the substance of the draft Resource Book in Bangkok last December. The UN Special Representative on HRDs Hina Jilani also attended the meeting and shared her enthusiasm and support for this initiative which she strongly endorsed as a very important contribution to further the promotion and protection of WHRDs.

An important step in developing the Resource Book is ensuring that the context and realities of different WHRDs' experiences around the globe are reflected in the Resource Book to ensure that it is a relevant and useful tool for understanding and addressing the needs of WHRDs. For this purpose, two Consultations were convened in Nepal to share the issues in South Asian context and in Indonesia with a focus on the context of fundamentalisms and extremism.

Consultation in Nepal
The South Asian WHRD Resource Book Consultation was hosted by Women's Rehabilitation Centre (WOREC) from 12-15 January, 2007. The objectives of the Consultation were to further deepen and enhance the Resource Book with the experiences and realities of WHRDs in South Asia. Sunila Abeysekera and Mary Jane Real from the resource persons group attended and facilitated the sessions.

The Consultation was attended by 15 Participants from Nepal, India, Bangladesh and a Bhutanese refugee in Nepal. Many of the participants have worked on documenting human rights violations and shared difficulties and concerns they have faced in documenting the cases in specific contexts, such as working on LGBTI rights in Nepal, or women's rights in Dalit community.

One of the concerns raised in the discussion was how to formulate a standard of ethics of WHRD in conducting documentation. It was pointed out that we, WHRDs, are also within the existing power structure in a patriarchal society and have some limitation in our capacity, such as biases and fear. Participants were reminded it is important to minimise possible repercussions in conducting documentation but also we should be aware that there is no guarantee of documenters' safety. One of the participants emphasised that documenters should not only get information from the interviewees but also assist the victims/survivors by providing information on available mechanisms to seek protection/redress or by bridging individual cases to wider community at national, regional or international levels to make the cases more visible. Another gap in documentation of human rights violations was pointed out, which is that violations against youth are not paid enough attention to and not documented well due to a bias, which tends to consider the youth as delinquent /violent / negative force in the society.

Sunila advised that documenting violations will help us see some patterns of violation perpetrated by a group, which further help us identify strategies and mechanisms for prevention as well as seeking redress. A guest speaker, Sonali Regmi from OHCHR in Nepal, gave a presentation on OHCHR's work on HRDs in Nepal. The information, findings and recommendations based on her and her office's experience in Nepali context were very useful for the local participants to see through the situation and identify new strategies.

Consultation in Indonesia
The Consultation was held in Jakarta on March 1-4, 2007 and brought together 15 participants from Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Iraq, Malaysia, Pakistan, Palestine and the Philippines with the objective of sharing experiences in defending women's and LGBTI rights to input into the WHRD Resource Book. The specific experiences of WHRDs living in environments of fundamentalisms and extremism were an important focus of the Consultation. The consultation was hosted by Komnas Perempuan (Indonesian Commission on Violence against Women). Kamala Chandrakirana of Komnas and a member of APWLD WHR WG shared her thought on why she agreed to host this event in Indonesia, saying that she felt the urgency to bring the Consultation to Jakarta for deeper understanding on violations against WHRDs and the environment which allows those violations in diverse contexts in Indonesia such as armed conflict, Shariah law, Muslim communities, indigenous communities, and the urban poor community.

One of the purposes and also the highlight of the Consultation was discussion of LGBTI issues. This Consultation was initially planned to be held in Egypt but the Egyptian host organisation had reservations on including LGBTI issues in the Consultation agenda. It was crucial for the Consultation to include LGBTI issues and affirm LGBTI activists are WHRDs as well as to identify negative consequences and repercussions of addressing the issue in specific contexts.

Participants from Afghanistan shared the difficulty of addressing or even talking on LGBTI issues in the society governed by Islamic laws which consider LGBTI as criminal. Fundamentalists attack human rights activists accusing them of supporting gay and lesbian people. "We cannot talk openly about LGBTI issues and will not be able to use the Resource Book if it includes LGBTI issues", they said. A participant from Palestine informed that gay and lesbian relationships are considered incest in her society.

An Indonesian participant shared her experience of verbal harassment she has received as an LGBTI activist. Despite the difficulty of working for LGBTI rights in a Muslim community, she has been promoting LGBTI as personal identity as well.

It was reaffirmed that the LGBTI issue is important as a general consensus at the Consultation and it was confirmed that the Resource Book would retain the issue of LGBTI, while the risks and repercussions in addressing the issue were recognised, and careful application of the Resource Book in some contexts was recommended

The Consultation also had a great opportunity to deepen the understanding of the issue of LGBTIQ (Queer) and explore future inter-movement collaboration through a short discussion with a group of LGBTIQ activists led by Toni Kasim from Malaysia who were organizing the meeting on Islam and LGBTIQ in Jakarta on the same dates as our Consultation.

After the Consultation, the resource persons who attended the Consultation in Jakarta had a meeting to confirm necessary arrangements and schedule for finalising the Resource Book. The team also discussed follow-up activities related to the WHRD Resource Book after its completion in April and have agreed on launching and translation of the WHRD Resource Book this year and longer-term follow-ups for our continuing work on WHRD as a network. The WHRD Resource Book is coming out very soon!