International Women's Day Signers (and Singers) Believe 'Poverty is Sexist'
In 2015, the ONE Campaign launched its Poverty is Sexist campaign, asking women and men around the world to take "strengthies" (strong selfies) in solidarity with the women's rights movement. ONE also produced the "Strong Girl" video to promote African artists in the movement. On International Women's Day 2016, ONE has issued a letter signed by Hollywood luminaries, musicians and activists such as Oprah Winfrey, Robert Redford, Muhammad Ali, Sheryl Sandberg and others. (June 2016 UPDATE: Since March, he letter has received nearly 200,000 support signatures). To learn more, click here. Below, read the letter:
Nowhere on earth do women have as many opportunities as men. Nowhere.
While the debate around this truth rages everywhere, girls and women living in extreme poverty – those often hit hardest by the injustice of gender inequality – have been left out of the conversation.
This must change. The fight for gender equity is global.
Some 62 million girls are denied the right to education. Half a billion women can’t read. 155 countries still have laws that discriminate against women.
Last year, you signed up to end extreme poverty, and because poverty is sexist, you promised to tackle the gender inequality that keeps people poor.
This year, there are a series of historic opportunities to test your commitment and to make meaningful progress by delivering:
Funding in 2016 at the Nutrition for Growth and Global Fund Summits to help girls and women fight HIV and malnutrition, because it is an outrage that girls account for 74% of all new HIV infections among adolescents in Africa and 40% of women on the continent suffer from anaemia which results in 20% of maternal deaths; Policies which support female economic empowerment: access to electricity, connectivity, education and justice, so girls and women have the right to own property, start a business and decide when and whether to marry;
Better data on the girls and women we can’t see, don’t know exist and therefore can’t yet deliver for.
International Women’s Day must be about advancing girls and women everywhere.