Dear JOhn, 

I recently attended the launch of the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative led by USAID and the White House. Together, U.S. departments, bi-partisan members of congress and the private sector, pledged increased aid to protect and promote the rights of women and girls abroad.

As one example the group highlighted child marriage as a legal barrier to prosperity. At the launch, the initiative announced their support for changing the minimum age of marriage in Cote d'Ivoire to 18.

I did a double take. Child marriage is currently legal in 48 U.S. states.

I applaud the pledge this group has made for women and girls in other countries and ask them to extend that support to delivering equality for women and girls in the U.S. Equality must be protected from partisan politics and instead lifted up as the American value it is. Protecting and promoting women’s equality is good for communities and business. Everywhere.

And yet: states are passing regressive laws on reproductive rights; a pregnant woman who was shot, was arrested for manslaughter when the fetus died as a result of her wounds; anti-FGM laws are under attack; sexual harassment policies in the workplace have not caught up with the breadth of the problem exposed by #MeToo and #TimesUp; survivors of sexual violence are being silenced.

The most effective thing we can all do to deliver equality for women and girls is to guarantee their rights in the U.S. Constitution with an Equal Rights Amendment.

This Monday, August 26, is National Women’s Equality Day, a day commemorating the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920.

This Women’s Equality Day, we need your help to urge members of Congress to support the Equal Rights Amendment.

Let's make equality a reality in the United States’ most fundamental legal document.

In solidarity,

Shelby Quast
Americas Director

P.S. If you do not live in the United States, please update your information here.