Uniting struggles to transform unjust social and economic structures since 2003

ESCR-Net is a collaborative initiative of social movements, Indigenous Peoples groups, human rights organizations, feminist and environmental organizations, independent unions, and advocates from around the world, working to secure economic, social, and environmental justice through human rights.

4 Report Second Women Leaders Exchange Eng

40 leaders from over 25 social movements across Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, and Africa attended our social movements gathering in Sao Luís, Brazil, in January 2024.
Members of the Women and ESCR working group during the women leaders’ exchange on the struggles for land, and natural resources held in 2019 in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

The only tool the poor have is organizing to resist, and when I talk about organizing, I don’t just mean Indigenous organizations joining forces. We have to unite with fisher people, miners, and academics—that is, everybody. If we do not, we cannot resist.

— Benito Calixto (Coordinadora Andina de Organizaciones Indígenas, Perú)

At the ESCR-Net Global Strategy Meeting in November 2016, our board and members shaped the following shared network-wide objectives:

Advocate shared alternatives to the dominant socio-economic model, grounded in an inclusive vision for realizing human rights and environmental justice;
Center ESCR in public debates, decision-making, structures and practices, intensifying cross-network strategies for investigation, popularization, strategic action and campaigning, attentive to the roles of States, corporations and other actors;
Secure justice for systemic ESCR violations, pursuing effective accountability, regulation, remedies and implementation through participatory approaches;
Counter growing repression, reinforcing the credibility and capacity of human rights defenders and connecting reprisals to underlying ESCR issues;
Strengthen connections between diverse struggles, challenging common global conditions and foregrounding the analysis and leadership of social movements; and
Operationalize an intersectional approach in practice, foregrounding gender analysis and guided by communities confronting overlapping forms of oppression, exploitation and dispossession.

We would like to express our gratitude to ESCR-Net Members who are interviewed and named in this video. We also want to give special thanks to the following Members who contributed footage to the video: Defend Job, DeJusticia, ESCR-Asia, Fian International, Habitat International Coalition, International Commission of Jurists, Kenya Human Rights Commission, Legal Resources Centre, Media Mobilizing Project, Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum, Plataforma Dhesca, Poverty Initiative, Terra de Direitos, TierraViva, Video Volunteers and Witness.

Mission

ESCR-Net is a collaborative initiative of social movements, Indigenous Peoples groups, human rights organizations, feminist and environmental organizations, independent unions, and advocates from around the world, working to secure economic, social, and environmental justice through human rights.