Women's rights through poetry
Watch poets Sarah Crossan, Amy León, Inja, Deanna Rodger and Bethany Rose take the Make a Difference in a Minute challenge.
Students can also take the challenge by writing a poem about women's rights that can be performed in one minute or less.
Bethany Rose
Deanna Rodger
Sarah Crossan
Take the challenge
Submit a poem which can be:
- A personal experience of, or view on, women's rights OR
- An appeal or solidarity poem for Azza Soliman, a women’s human rights defender who has had her right to freedom of expression taken away (more details below).
You can submit a poem in written form or as an audio or video clip that is one-minute or less. A selection of poems will be chosen for showcase on our website. We will let you know if a poem is chosen.
If you submit a solidarity or appeal poem for Azza Soliman, Amnesty International UK will send your written poems, and where possible audio and video clips, to Azza or the Egyptian president.
"These rights belong to everybody; whether we are rich or poor, whatever country we live in, whatever sex or whatever colour we are, whatever language we speak, whatever we think or whatever we believe."
– Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), Article 2
Find out about Amnesty International’s work on Women's Rights.
Azza Soliman
Azza Soliman is a lawyer and women’s human rights defender from Egypt. She has been arrested many times for defending human rights. The Egyptian authorities and media have harassed Azza by inventing stories about her and calling her an enemy of Egypt. She is now under threat of being imprisoned.
Azza has worked very hard to protect others human rights. She has started an organisation that helps poor Egyptian women get legal aid and support.
The Egyptian government is trying to silence Azza because they do not like the things she says about Egypt.
Azza has now been charged with insulting Egypt by saying that women in Egypt face violence. She is banned from travel and could be sent to prison for up to 25 years, just because she won’t stop defending Egyptian people and their human rights.
Women's Rights in Egypt
In Egypt women have inadequate protection from sexual and gender-based violence, as well as facing gender discrimination in law and practice.
The government is trying to stop people from having freedom: freedom to help women, freedom to defend women’s rights, and freedom to express themselves.
Solidarity and Appeal
Write a solidarity poem to Azza, letting her know that you support her and her work defending women’s human rights.
Write an appeal poem to the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, asking him to drop the charges against Azza and to stop the government imprisoning and harassing women's human rights defenders.
