FRIDAY FILE: Domestic workers contribute greatly to the global economy. They bolster local and foreign economies by taking on care-giving roles, and migrant workers send home remittances that form a substantial part of their home countries’ gross domestic product. Yet for a long time domestic labour has been unregulated and domestic workers have experienced violations of their economic rights and faced barriers in accessing justice.

FRIDAY FILE: The role of women and girls as key to changing the course of development has received increasing attention in recent years, further bolstered by calls for making gender equality a cornerstone of development, but has the rhetoric of commitment translated into actual financial support?

FRIDAY FILE: Twenty years after the first United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) that took place in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 it is clear that governments have failed to implement development models that are socially just and environmentally sustainable. It is in the context of revision of the of sustainable development framework that Rio+20 will take place.

Friday File: This week the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition (WHRD IC) launched its Global Report on the Situation of Women Human Rights Defenders to advance the recognition of WHRDs, the violence and human rights violations they face, and the contexts that enable these violations.

By Katherine Ronderos

FRIDAY FILE: Militarism, conflict and violence are on the rise and have a range of gender-specific impacts. Increased spending on defense, arms and security often means that spending on social services is being cut. In the context of militarism and conflict violence against women also increases and attacks on women’s human rights defenders are growing and are increasingly normalized.

FRIDAY FILE: In 2011 the United Nations consolidated all four UN bodies working on gender equality - OSAGI, UNIFEM, INSTRAW, and DAW - to create one UN agency working on women's rights. On behalf of the Gender Equality Architecture Reform (GEAR) Campaign, Charlotte Bunch, founding member of the GEAR campaign reflects on the first year of UN Women.

FRIDAY FILE: The 2012 AWID Forum aims to explore how economic power is impacting on women and planet, and to facilitate connections among diverse groups working on these issues from human rights and justice approaches so that together we contribute to stronger, more effective strategies to advance women’s rights and justice.

FRIDAY FILE: The Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF-4) which took place in Busan, Korea, from 29th November to 1st December 2011 saw some progress being made in the aid and development effectiveness process but there are still a number of outstanding concerns.

By Anne Schoenstein and Nerea Craviotto

FRIDAY FILE: Resisting neoliberal approaches and presenting alternatives, Buen Vivir promotes life and balance among human beings and all living beings so that we co-exist in harmony with nature. AWID spoke to the economist Magdalena León T. from the Latin American Women’s Network for Transforming the Economy (REMTE) about the origins and development of Buen Vivir in Ecuador and what it means for women

By Gabriela De Cicco

FRIDAY FILE: Gender stereotypes disadvantage women in many ways. A book by Rebecca J. Cook and Simone Cusack examines these stereotypes from a legal perspective and argues for a transnational legal approach to dismantling them.

By Kathambi Kinoti