As International Women’s Day 2026 approaches, the Women in Migration Network (WIMN) still finds reason to celebrate the resilience of our movements amidst the shrinking civic space. The challenge to expand and strengthen rights-based, strategic institutions and movements is ever more crucial.
We are today at a perilous crossroads, experiencing a pervasive backsliding and backlash against feminist policies across the globe. Anti-gender rhetoric is becoming normalized and has also permeated the highest levels of migration governance. Migration policies are increasingly stripped of their human rights foundations in favor of securitization and the criminalization of migrants.
In the coming period we will be opening our doors wider in the face of the closing doors of reactionary politics. WIMN is launching a new membership process after its recent transition and formalization, to enhance and embrace the collective power of members. A network is only as strong as its members, and a movement as strong as the civil society that underpins it. WIMN is committed to building an organization that is inclusive, expansive, and strategically aligned.
As we expand our membership, we renew our commitment to engage with what we call a “Feminist Migration Policy Agenda” (FMPA), a tool for advocacy and movement-building being unveiled during CSW70. With the diversity of our experiences, multiplicity of our voices, and strength of our commitment, we aim to help “hold the line” against backsliding.
WIMN is inviting membership applications from diverse groups aligned with migration justice and all its intersections – from the fight against the climate crisis to the fight against detention, from labor rights to the right to care, women’s rights, migrants’ rights, queer peoples’ rights, and more.
This movement is certainly larger than individual siloes, and we will continue to build it together in radical, intersectional solidarity that knows no borders. We understand that the struggle for migrant rights has not been born in a vacuum, but it has emerged in the resilience against the alignment of regressive forces, discriminatory rhetoric, and structural barriers.
Now, more than ever, we need a robust, fearless, and well-resourced civil society that can serve as the ground-truth at multiple levels, including spaces such as the UN’s International Migration Review Forum (IMRF) in May, which accounts for progress (or lack of) in states’ implementation of commitments in the Global Compact for Migration (GCM).
This International Women’s Day 2026, WIMN is proud to continue and expand both membership and alliances towards building a future with peace, justice and equity.
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Please stay posted for our new membership application form, and/or check the “Membership” tab at our website for details.