Here are the reasons you should make a gift for women and girls this #GivingTuesday
It has been a roller coaster of a year for women’s rights. With 2019 just around the corner, you can help us start the year on a high and reach our $20,000 fundraising target for Giving Tuesday.
Donate to start 2019 off right for women and girls.
In 2019 Equality Now will double our efforts to protect and progress the rights of women and girls. And here are just a few of the reasons your #GivingTuesday gift should be for women and girls.
1. On Giving Tuesday, your donation will go TWICE as far. Every dollar you donate will be MATCHED DOLLAR FOR DOLLAR* by a generous supporter, doubling your investment in the lives of women and girls.
2. Protect laws against FGM in the U.S.: We’ll be working hard to ensure laws are in place at the state and federal level to protect women and girls from FGM. This follows the unbelievable news that U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman to dismiss charges brought in Michigan against two doctors and six others accused of subjecting nine girls to FGM.
3. End child marriage in the U.S.: Research from our partners Unchained at Last, show 248,000 children were married between 2000 and 2010. Among them is a 14-year-old girl who was married to a 74-year-old man in Alabama. The majority of ‘child marriages’ are girls being married to older men. Equality Now and Unchained at Last are part of a national coalition to end child marriage, by removing statutory exceptions to rape, if the child is married to the rapist. We’ll launch the coalition on December 10th.
4. Do you think gender equality is an American value? Me too. That’s why I’m thrilled we are supporting grassroots organization VA ratify ERA in 2019, to get Virginia to be the 38th and final state needed to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, which would finally enshrine gender equality in the U.S. Constitution.
5. Hands-off commercial sexual exploitation laws in Canada: Earlier this year, the Liberal Party passed a resolution calling to overturn Canada’s groundbreaking Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (PCEPA), which passed in 2014. The act aims to end the commercial sexual exploitation of individuals and protect human rights, especially of women and girls. The proposed move would fully decriminalize the sex trade – including activities that directly exploit women: pimping, brothel owning and sex buying. It would also spark an increase in sex trafficking, including of minors, to meet the consequent state-sanctioned demand for prostitution.
6. Scale-up our efforts on rape law reform: The continued fall out from the “wolf pack” case in Spain and the recent story from Ireland where a teenager’s underwear was held up in court as a “demonstration” of her “consent” show us two things. One – survivors of rape and sexual violence still face humiliation and an uphill battle to access justice. Two – rape laws across Europe and beyond are in urgent need of reform. Next year we’ll hone our efforts to reform rape laws and justice procedures, aiming to focus attention where it should lie on what the accused did or didn’t do and away from the practice that the complainant has to “prove” she was innocent.
7. Standing up for laws against ‘child marriage’ and FGM in Kenya: Both FGM and ‘child marriage’ have been illegal in Kenya since the Children’s Act, 2001, however, both practices remain common with the prevalence of ‘child marriage’ at 23% and FGM at 21%. We’ve been working hard together with law enforcement agents, government departments and the National Gender and Equality Commission to improve their ability to hold perpetrators accountable. We won’t stop until women and girls across Kenya are free from ‘child marriage’ and FGM.
These are just some of the campaigns we’ll be working on in 2019. It’s going to be an important year for women and girls in all the countries we work in. But we’ve got you, so things are going to work out.
Today is #GivingTuesday and there is no better time to make a donation that will reclaim the rights of women and girls around the world.
In the UK? To make a donation in UK pounds sterling and boost your donation with gift aid, click here.
You can also support Equality Now with your holiday gifts for loved ones, with our Holiday Shopping Guide, coming soon.
And we have many other ways to contribute, just take a look.
* Donations will be matched up to $10,000.