What an incredible weekend! This year’s march was a testament to the passion, energy and activism that birthed this movement. It was amazing to see so many different people marching side by side demanding justice and equal rights for women and girls. Thank you to all the Team Equality Now members who marched with us in New York, Los Angeles, London and Washington DC! Together we marched because a life free from sexual violence is everyone’s human right – a right that must be enshrined in our laws our cultures and our communities.
2017 was a year of reckoning for perpetrators and enablers of sexual violence and harassment in the workplace. Galvanized by political events that hit hard, women started speaking out against the normalized violence they faced in their lives and their careers. They proved to be an immense force making corporations, public institutions and agencies take a long overdue and hard look inside themselves and make important changes! The culture of impunity will finally change.
At Equality Now, we’re going to use the momentum to make sure that policymakers, legislators, and corporations change practices that facilitate sexual violence and gender inequality and implement policies that condemn such violations, big or small! Whether it is advocating for legislation to stop companies in the US from allowing the internet to be a safe haven for sex trafficking, holding the Tanzanian government accountable to addressing sexual abuse rather than arresting pregnant girls and keeping them out of school, or continuing the momentum to repeal laws that allow rapists to go free by marrying their victims – 2018 is going to be a big year.
When we stand together against sexism and abuse, we are unstoppable. Please, share this message of solidarity with your friends and ask them to join Equality Now in making the world a just place for women and girls – every voice makes a difference.
Here’s to another incredible year of activism and solidarity.