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In 2022, over 85% of the submissions we’ve made to UN treaty bodies resulted in one or more of our recommendations being adopted, which is key to holding governments accountable for protecting and promoting the rights of women and girls.
In 2021, Equality Now was able to directly impact 1,861 women and girls, and 1,537,000 women and girls are benefiting from legal changes, stronger protections, and better implementation of existing laws.
In 1999, Equality Now issued a ground-breaking report titled Words & Deeds, which we’ve continued to update every five years. The report highlights sex discriminatory laws around the world that negatively affect women, girls, and other vulnerable people. Since we released our 5th report update in 2020, many of the discriminatory laws we highlighted have been overturned or revised. For example:
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A section of Bahamas’ Sexual Offenses and Domestic Violence Act of 1991 explicitly allows marital rape, but a new bill to amend this provision and add a definition of sexual consent is now pending.
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In 2005, India passed the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, which enabled women to access various civil remedies for domestic violence, including sexual abuse. We also welcome a recent progressive ruling by India’s top court stating, “intimate partner violence is a reality and can take the form of rape.” We hope this will ultimately lead to marital rape being outlawed.
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In Syria, a law that previously allowed men to kill their female relatives for “honor” with little to no punishment was repealed, removing the mitigating excuse for “honor" crimes.
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