What Is Intersectionality and Why Does It Matter?
In the humanitarian sector and particularly in the field of human rights and advocacy, addressing injustice and discrimination requires more than a singular approach. Human experiences are shaped by multiple, intersecting factors such as gender, race, class, disability, migration status, and more. Recognizing this, intersectional advocacy has emerged as an essential framework for understanding and addressing the complexity of injustice in a meaningful and inclusive way.
Intersectionality emphasizes that individuals do not experience oppression based solely on one identity, but often through a combination of overlapping identities. This results in unique and often compounded experiences of discrimination or exclusion. For instance, someone may be affected not just by gender-based discrimination, but also by barriers tied to their legal status, socio-economic background, or ethnicity, all at the same time.
Incorporating an intersectional lens allows practitioners to move beyond one-dimensional responses and design strategies that reflect the realities people live every day. It shifts advocacy work from general assumptions to more nuanced, targeted, and responsive actions that aim to address the root causes of inequality, not just the symptoms.
The Importance of Real Solidarity
This approach is especially critical in program design, legal reform, and policy-making. It requires that we ask key questions such as: Who is most affected? Are we including those most at risk in our decision-making processes? Are our solutions adaptable to different needs and identities? These questions encourage deeper analysis, more inclusive engagement, and better-informed interventions.
Intersectional advocacy also encourages collaboration across sectors whether it’s gender justice, education, health, labor rights, or climate justice recognizing that no area of human rights exists in isolation. It promotes inclusive practices that value local knowledge and lived experience, and it pushes institutions to be more accountable to the communities they serve.
Importantly, adopting an intersectional approach also means being reflective and willing to learn. It asks human rights workers, policy-makers, and humanitarian actors to examine how their own practices, structures, or assumptions may unintentionally exclude or silence certain groups.
In practical terms, this could include conducting intersectional impact assessments before launching new initiatives, ensuring diverse representation in decision-making spaces, and actively removing barriers that prevent marginalized communities from fully participating in advocacy processes.
As the world faces increasingly interconnected challenges from forced migration and digital surveillance to systemic inequality and gender-based violence, intersectional advocacy provides a more resilient and responsive foundation for action. It offers the tools to address complexity without simplifying it, and it equips us to build solutions that are both just and sustainable. For non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in the fields of human rights and advocacy, adopting an intersectional approach is not only beneficial, but also vital to achieving meaningful impact. NGOs often operate at the intersection of multiple issues, engaging with diverse communities facing overlapping forms of marginalization. By integrating intersectionality into their strategies, programs, and evaluation frameworks, these organizations can ensure that their work is more inclusive, responsive, and grounded in the lived realities of the people they aim to support. It enables NGOs to avoid one-size-fits-all solutions, tailor their interventions to the specific needs of marginalized groups, and build alliances across movements and identities. In doing so, they strengthen their role as agents of social transformation and contribute to the development of more equitable, just, and resilient societies.
Ultimately, intersectional advocacy is not merely a framework, it is a commitment to equity, inclusion, and long-term change. By recognizing the full spectrum of people’s experiences and identities, it brings greater depth, integrity, and impact to human rights work. In today’s rapidly evolving global landscape, this approach is not only relevant, it is essential.
