Meeting: Association of Women s Rights in Development

Every three years, the Association of Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) holds a global meeting with more than 2,000 attendees. The meetings have become key sites of exchange and debate for women’s rights advocates, particularly in light of the absence of transnational venues for exchanging experiences and challenges, and in response to AWID’s self-declared change in goals, moving from an elite development professionals’ meeting to one dedicated to engaging critically with development and globalization.

SHARP Law and Health Advisor Ali Miller attended as facilitator of three sessions of relevance to OSI: the new politics of identity and sexuality; the meaning of sex work for feminists; and the dangers of the anti-trafficking framework for rights, especially sex workers’ rights and safe migration. These workshops revealed a high level of interest in the topics among participants, and underscored the need for more generally accessible and thoughtful spaces to question dominant or conventional approaches to sexuality, health and rights. A number of participants organized a very successful demonstration against the "prostitution pledge" during a plenary break. Participants also met to devise ongoing research, information sharing, and advocacy strategies on these issues.