FairPlanet.Support
| topic: | Women's rights |
|---|---|
| tags: | #women's rights, #Equality Now, #NGO, #UN Women, #COVID-19, #petition, #donation |
| by: | Yair Oded |
Violence and discrimination against women continues to plague societies across the world. This is evident in widespread cases of domestic violence, discriminatory laws and practices, and increased vulnerability to major global disasters, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis.
From India to Bosnia to the United States, women and girls continue to be subject to physical, sexual, and emotional abuse and face unrelenting threats to their social, economic, political, health, and reproductive rights.
According to UN Women, an estimated 35 per cent of women worldwide have suffered either physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner or a non-partner in their lives. Other studies indicate that up to 70 per cent of women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence from their intimate partner throughout their life, UN Women reports.
Equality Now is a non-profit organisation working to combat discrimination against women around the world and achieve genuine equality between the sexes.
Believing that legal equality is a prerequisite to true gender equality, Equality Now mobilises a dedicated team of attorneys and legal experts in order to tackle discriminatory laws and practices in countries around the world. “A country’s laws set the tone for how it treats its people, and how its people treat each other. When women and girls have fewer rights than men and boys, violence and discrimination are legitimised and ignored,” the organisation states on its website.
Equality Now’s legal team works to challenge existing discriminatory laws and provisions and campaigns for the adoption of laws and the foundation of legal systems that provide genuine equality, protection, and support for women.
The organisation focuses on four main objectives in its work - achieving legal equality, ending sexual violence, ending sex traficking, and eradicating harmful practices (such as FGM and child marriage). As it strives to achieve its objectives, Equality Now, in addition to its legal work, collaborates with other organisations on the ground and amplifies voices of women of various backgrounds.
Equality Now submits extensive reports to key national and international bodies and stakeholders in order to inform them of current injustices and compel them to take concrete action toward gender equality and protection women.
It also runs an online blog, publishes stories and testimonies of activists and survivors of violence, abuse, and discrimination, organises workshops and events, and provides extensive tool-kits and resources for anyone interested in learning about the challenges facing women and the efforts to protect them.
Equality Now rightly points out that discrimination and violence against women ultimately harms their entire society. “[R]esearch shows that where women and girls are treated unfairly, there is more societal conflict and less economic stability. When societies treat women and girls fairly, there is less societal conflict and more economic stability.”
Visit Equality Now’s website to access their resources, sign one of their ongoing petitions, make a donation, or support their fundraising efforts.
Image: Marc Nozell
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