Yifat Susskind
Yifat Susskind is the Executive Director of MADRE, an international women's human rights organization. She has worked with women’s human rights activists from Latin America, the Middle East, Asia and Africa to create programs in their communities to address women's health, violence against women, economic and environmental justice and peacebuilding. She has also written extensively on US foreign policy and women’s human rights and her critical analysis has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy in Focus and elsewhere.
Articles by this author
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Views Tuesday, November 17, 2020 Biden Should Embrace an Anti-Imperialist Feminist Foreign Policy to Heal Wounds Abroad—and at Home In the 2020 presidential election, Black women, Indigenous women and people of color across the country delivered the votes to throw Donald Trump out of office. These voters want a new era in policy priorities, requiring radical change to the status quo—not just when it comes to U.S. domestic... Read more |
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Views Friday, October 30, 2020 A Feminist Blueprint for Saving Democracy in the US—and Beyond A group of women link arms, shielding protestors from armed security forces who stand ready to detain them. Thousands of women, many dressed head to toe in white and holding flowers, line the streets in “ chains of solidarity ”. These are the “Women in White”, who have mobilised in unprecedented... Read more |
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Views Friday, April 10, 2020 As the Virus Unleashes Violence, Women in War-torn Countries Organize You can now google lists of rich and famous people who have been infected with coronavirus, leading some to comment that COVID-19 is an equal-opportunity disease. But while the virus itself doesn’t discriminate, responses to it have reinforced inequality, leaving more people exposed to widespread... Read more |
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Views Sunday, August 04, 2019 Not a Straight White Man? U.S. Religious Conservatives Are Coming for You Any schoolchild in the United States knows that the US Declaration of Independence guarantees individuals’ rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. Now, imagine what these principles mean for right-wingers and religious fundamentalists: where “life” refers to fetuses; “liberty”... Read more |
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Views Sunday, May 12, 2019 A Mother's Resolve: Organizing for Local and Global Climate Justice A scarred hillside stood before us, a reminder of a 2014 oil pipeline spill. Oil pumpjacks rose and fell relentlessly around us. We had just arrived on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota, home to the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara nations. MADRE, the... Read more |
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Views Thursday, November 29, 2018 Who Benefits When Women Human Rights Defenders Are Targeted? In my work, I have the privilege of partnering with visionary activists who fight each and every day for the rights of women and their communities — and who often face retaliation for their activism. I first met Yanar Mohammed, a prominent Iraqi feminist, just months after she founded the... Read more |
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Views Monday, February 26, 2018 Sanctions on North Korea Will Not Lead to Peace. Just Ask Iraqis. As the world turns its attention away from the goodwill of the PyeongChang Olympics, the Trump Administration is doubling down on its hostility towards North Korea — this time in the form of aggressive new sanctions announced on Friday that target that country’s ability to carry out trade. When the... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, January 23, 2018 Feminism Will Not Be Weaponized for Trump's War on Immigrants It’s hard to keep up with the cacophony of bigoted expletives and outrages emanating from the White House. So you may have missed the Administration’s latest desperate attempt to justify its xenophobic and racist immigration policies, this time by pretending to care about women’s rights. Last... Read more |
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Views Friday, January 20, 2017 A Beginning, Not an End: My Open Letter To You on Inauguration Day Today is the beginning. It may be the start of the Trump Administration, but let it also be the inauguration of something much more powerful: a renewed feminist social justice movement that takes root in each of our lives, throughout the country and around the world. "What did you do to protect... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, December 06, 2016 Women the World over Have Shown the US How to Deal with Sexism and Racism Many in the US are emerging from their initial shock at the outcome of the presidential election to confront its likely impacts: a legitimation of right-wing identity politics, worsening climate change and militarism, assaults on women’s rights and LGBT rights , and the gutting of basic public... Read more |