Justin Dream / Unsplash This is a profoundly disheartening time for human rights work. Democratic backsliding, widening inequality, accelerating ecological crises, and intensifying conflict have reshaped the context for advancing human rights. Civic space has shrunk, and human rights defenders are increasingly stigmatized, criminalized, and attacked. Funding for rights-based work is under strain just as authoritarian and exclusionary forces appear increasingly emboldened.
