Lin Chew

For a really good start of the new century, AHRC would like to introduce a new women's human rights web-site, which is informative, engaged, creative and practical.

Under the motto "Strengthening Women’s Advocacy through Information and Communication Technologies" the women’s human rights net www.whrnet.org was launched during the International Conference of the association for Women in Development (AWID) in Washington, last November.

The whrNET home-page describes the net as follows:

"whrNET is a collaborative Information & Communication Technology (ICT) project developed by an international coalition of women's organisations. whrNET aims to strengthen advocacy for women's human rights through the effective utilisation of information and communication technologies. The sponsoring organisations are part of a global movement for women's human rights that has grown steadily since the World Conference of Human Rights (Vienna, 1993) and the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995). whrNET is jointly sponsored and supported by its partner organisations and is governed by an elected International Executive Committee.

whrNET links partner organisations and women's human rights advocates worldwide via the Internet. Partner organisations in every region are active in the ongoing development of, and the provision of information for, this dynamic web-based resource which:

• affords relatively inexpensive access to reliable, timely, advocacy-oriented information pertinent to advancing women's human rights.
• provides information in three main languages - English, French and Spanish.
• serves as an on-line space for the exchange of information and the development of advocacy strategies.
• promotes and provides resources aimed at building capacity among women's human rights organisations and activists.
• assesses and responds to the technological and training needs of the women's human rights community

whrNET Web Site Sections

The information provided through the web-site is organised into the following main categories:

• Women's Human Rights Issues - provides brief introductions, facts, and relevant web links highlighting the gender dimensions of more than 20 important human rights issues from freedom of expression, to violence against women, and the situation of refugees.
• Advocacy/Strategies - highlights the main elements involved in advocacy for women's human rights; provides descriptions, contact details, and relevant web links pertaining to recent women's human rights advocacy strategies from around the world. Sub-headings are - Campaigns, Human Rights Education, Law Reform & Legislation, Legal, Media/Public Awareness, networking/Communication and Politics & Policy.
• News and Urgent Action Alerts- provides timely information on new developments and current urgent cases involving violations of women's human rights and actions that can be taken to help.
• UN/Regional Systems - an annotated list of web links featuring major human rights documents, treaty-monitoring bodies, special rapporteurs and working groups, as well as relevant NGO sites engaged in lobbying and/or drafting processes within UN and regional human rights systems.
• Capacity Building - provides information on available resources and training programs in areas such as: leadership development; institution building; fundraising; human rights documentation; and information and communications technologies.

Other features of whrNET

• Partners links to all whrNET partner organisations
• Forum: On-line discussions on relevant women's human rights issues
• Resource Centre :A women's human rights virtual resource centre supporting advocacy, education and research
• Events Upcoming governmental, UN, and NGO women's human rights events

• Search Powerful internal search engine

Contacting whrNET

Web location: www.whrNET.org

E-mail: whrnet@whrnet.org