Overview
Every day, women and girls around the world face violence and discrimination. Sexual exploitation, violence, harmful cultural practices, and systemic inequalities violate their human rights and prevent them from reaching their potential.
Equality Now uses regional and international human rights law to hold governments accountable for their promises and to bring local issues to the attention of human rights bodies.
Equality Now’s work at a glance
Overturning sex discriminatory laws. Almost 60% of the discriminatory laws we’ve highlighted since 1999 have been fully or partially reformed.
Highlighting the urgent need for family law reform. Unafraid of difficult issues, we’re working with activists committed to tackling inequalities in family law, including distribution of marital wealth, child marriage, divorce, and custody.
Ending impunity for perpetrators of sexual violence. From Georgia and Kenya to India and Bolivia, we work with partners to hold states accountable to their international obligations and ensure they enact and effectively implement laws that protect and promote the rights of women and girls to live free from sexual violence.
Our work
Learn more
Key resources
Words and Deeds: Sex Discrimination in Personal Status Laws
The 4th UN Conference on Women in 1995 was the birth of The Beijing Platform for Action, the most progressive blueprint ever for advancing women’s rights. Governments around the world pledged to change or remove their …
READ MORE
Submission to the Office of the UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Technology on the Global Digital Compact from UN Women on behalf of the Action Coalition on Gender Based Violence; Equality Now; and the Alliance for Universal Digital Rights (AUDRi)
Under The Common Agenda, the UN Secretary General called for a Global Digital Compact to be agreed at the Summit of the Future (September 2024) to “outline shared principles for an open, free and secure digital future for all.” Ensuring that women’s rights organizations in all their diversity feed into this process is …
READ MORE
Submission to the Special Rapporteur on Slavery (HCR) 78th session 2023
Equality Now respectfully submits this brief to the Office of the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences, in response to the call for input on the use of …
READ MORE
Explore the Full Resource Library
Join
None of us can afford to sit back and wait for equality to arrive – we need to act now. Only by working together will we achieve the legal and systemic change needed to address violence and discrimination against women and girls.
Get involved
Social change begins with legal change and people like you — raising your voice against injustice — play a vital role in our collective success.
Take action
Still No Constitutional Equality in the US. Together, We Can Change That
Although the majority of senators voted on April 27th in favor of SJ Res 4, the resolution to recognize the ERA as the 28th Amendment, it did not gain the required 60 votes required to pass. But the ERA is …
READ MORE
International Day Of Families – Week of Action
This year for the International Day of Families on May 15th, the Global Campaign for Equality in Family Law (GCEFL) is marking a ‘Week of Action’ between May 15 – 19th, and we invite you to join our efforts in ending …
READ MORE
Tell Your Senators to Vote Yes on the ERA Today!
Surprisingly, the US Constitution does not guarantee equal rights for women. After 100 years of campaigning, we are so close to changing that. Join our campaign to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment by calling on your Senators to …
READ MORE