Help Us Expand Our Activism: Join AHR Calls, First Thursdays

By Barbara L. Nielsen
Co-chair, Advancing Human Rights Issues Committee

• Are You Working on Countering Gun Violence in Your Local Schools?
• Are You Working on Countering Gun Violence in Your Local Community?
• Are You Working on Military Counter-Recruitment in Your Local Schools?
• Are You Working on Countering Militarism in Your Local Schools?
• Are You Working on Reproductive Justice Issues?
• Are You Working on Human Trafficking Issues?
• Are You Active in Other Human Rights Organizations?
• Are You Working on Other Human Rights Issues?
• Are You Active in Your Local UNA-USA Chapter?
• Are You Working on Racial Justice Issues?
• Do You Know About Our AHR Racial Justice Working Group?
• Want to Know More About Any of These Issues?

Please join our Advancing Human Rights Issues Committee’s next monthly meeting to let us know about your local, regional, national work and learn about others engaging in the same issues so we can grow our activism and effectiveness throughout the Section! Help us to develop resources to make available to our members and help us to establish networks around these issues.

Our Advancing Human Rights Issues Committee meets monthly on the first Thursdays of each month, at 5 pm pacific / 6 pm mountain / 7 pm central / 8 pm eastern!* The June call will be Thursday, June 5. Register for these Maestro Calls.

We are hoping that we can help our organizing and activism and movement building in all these areas, so that we can support working groups of members working on issues such as on which our members are already working and organizing:

• Reproductive Justice
• Militarism and/or Military Counter-Recruitment in Public Schools
• Gun Violence in Public Schools / Local Communities
• Human Trafficking
• Cities for CEDAW
• Racial Justice (an active Working Group meeting monthly–see below*)

Our members are doing work on issues around guns and gun violence in schools and military counter-recruitment in schools and may also be working around gun violence in local communities and militarism in schools. We are looking to hear from members to be able to learn from your work and to be able to share information within our Section.

Our members are working on human trafficking issues. It is widely thought by many in America to be mostly in the form of sexual slavery, which is by far the most profitable form of trafficking, but actually, the more widespread occurrence is in the form of labor trafficking, whether in the fields or other agricultural endeavors (including the meat-packing industry), or in domestic or other service jobs, and issues relating to immigration and border crossings can be interrelated. We are looking to hear from members who are active around these issues so we can learn from your work and share information within our Section.

Our members are working on Cities for CEDAW right now—and although most are looking at this effort with respect to nuclear disarmament/prohibition (i.e., more as a DISARM-End Wars than an AHR Issues Committee focus), we in AHR are looking to hear from members who are active around these issues so we can learn from your work and share information within our Section.

The AHR issues committee umbrella is a broad one, encompassing not only those issues we have worked on in the past, as important as they are (such as CEDAW and UNSCR 1325 and its progeny on Women, Peace, and Security), but also issues such as those listed above.

We know that we are having more, larger, and public outcries these days on many of these issues, but is anything seeming to be effective against these numerous and disparate assaults on human rights? How effective can we in WILPF be in moving our communities and governments away from the status quo and what works?

What are your ideas of how we can best address the myriad human rights issues affecting so many? Can we work together to be effective in doing so, and if so, how? What forms of interest and activism are we engaged in now, and what (else?) would make sense for us to engage in: more direct action, and if so, on what issues? Who is working in coalition with other organizations and what are they—sharing these connections with others can help us be more effective in our activism. Other ways? Please join our call to share what is important to you and your ideas for moving us forward.

Please mark your calendars for the June call, on Thursday, June 5. Our AHR calls are Maestro conferencing calls that require registration. If you are not registered already for this Advancing Human Rights Issues Committee call series, please do so using this link.

FYI: Our Racial Justice Working Group of the AHR Issues Committee meets on the fourth Thursdays of each month, same times (5 / 6 / 7 / 8 pm). This is where discussion, learning, and organizing for activism on issues around race, racial justice, racism, and related matters are most directly being focused and addressed. The link for registration for the Racial Justice Working Group Maestro call series is http://myaccount.maestroconference.com/conference/register/0SQL87ZTAOY4M4K0

For more information, contact:
Barbara L Nielsen, Advancing Human Rights Issues Committee Co-Chair, bln.sf.ca@gmail.com