On July 17, leaders from governments, international organizations, and civil society gathered at UN Headquarters for the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) side event, Accelerating Equality in Law for Women and Girls. Hosted by Equality Now and co-sponsored by UN Women, IDLO, the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights, the Global Campaign for Equality in Family Law, Women, Business and the Law of the World Bank,  and the Permanent Missions of Kyrgyzstan, the Philippines, and Spain, the event brought urgent attention to one unignorable truth: legal equality for all women and girls is a win for everyone.

Despite some progress, over 2.5 billion women and girls are still denied equal rights under the law. At the current pace, full legal equality is 300 years away. But the message from this event was clear: we don’t have to wait that long – and we shouldn’t.

Law as a lever for liberation

A powerful short film opened the session, imagining a future in which equality in law has been achieved. Headlines from 2050 celebrated a Nobel-winning team of Zambian women engineers and a global drop in conflict due to women’s leadership in peace processes. It showed us, as Equality Now Global Executive Director Mona Sinha said, “a future where equality in law is a reality, where constitutional equality is the norm, and where women’s leadership shapes a more just world.” But this wasn’t speculative fiction – it was grounded in what we already know: legal reform unlocks progress across every sector.

Read more at: https://equalitynow.org/news/news-and-insights/a-more-equal-future-is-possible-if-we-act-now/