Meryl Streep

Meryl Streep

Meryl Streep is an American actress known and admired world-wide. Although she began her acting career on stage in 1971, it was her roles in ‘Deer Hunter’ and ‘Kramer vs Kramer’ in the late ‘70s that gave her international accolade.

She is an international role model for women and girls everywhere and helps numerous charities regularly including Equality Now, one of the world’s leading organizations working to protect and promote the human rights of women and girls worldwide, which will mark its 20th Anniversary on April 19 2012 with a benefit at the Asia Society in New York City. Equality Now envisions a world in which women and men have equal rights under the law and full enjoyment of their human rights. However, the reality today is that millions face discrimination and violence, even death, simply for being born female.

Recently, Equality Now has issued Actions & Urgent Alerts calling on Backpage.com to end its global facilitation of sex trafficking; on Morocco to repeal their law allowing rapists to escape punishment by marrying their victims; on Egypt to ensure women’s rights post revolution; and on the United States to pass the Girls Protection Act to name a few. The organization believes that every woman and girl should be valued and her fundamental human rights recognized and protected. They strive for a time when rape, sex discriminatory laws, domestic violence, female genital mutilation (FGM), sex trafficking, child marriage and other human rights abuses against women and girls no longer exist.

“Equality Now has worked tirelessly these past 20 years to ensure that women’s and girls’ rights are part of the human rights agenda and to raise global awareness and promote activism on our issues,” says Global Director Yasmeen Hassan. “Gender equality benefits everyone and we look forward to celebrating the impact Equality Now has made since 1992. However we also want to take this time to acknowledge the extensive amount of work still left to do to create a better and safer world for women and girls.”