EmpowHer

It is with great passion that the EST launches its first equality project EmpowHer, to empower women and girls and spread awareness to women’s rights across the world. Beginning with practices in our own organization, on August 31th 2016, the EST Board voted in favour of the establishment of equality quotas in our organization and in favour of a global, inclusive and intersectional campaign for women’s rights. We invite you to become involved in our thrilling project.

The EST Board of 2016-17 has committed to the progressive implementation of equality quotas in our organization beginning on September 5th 2016 and committing to achieving a 50/50 representation by the first day of 2017. We achieved this milestone in January 2017.

Our equality project encompasses:

• Research and policy papers on women’s rights, on achieving gender equality globally and in International Organizations like our own;
• Working groups and conferences;
• Editorial content and academic research;
• Empowering women in leadership positions in our organization;
• Refugee women’s rights;
• Partnerships with organizations that advocate for women’s rights and LGBT rights;
• Creating awareness and denouncing any forms of violence against women across the world;
• Advocacy of LGBT rights, minority women’s rights, women refugee’s rights, etc…;

Find out more about our achievements thus far:

• Common Article on Gender Equality;
• Interviews and articles;
• Gender Equality Debate in the European Parliament;
• Empow(h)er conference in partnership with MAES;
• Working Group on Gender Equality and report on Paternity Leave;
• Project She Waited Long Enough in collaboration with the Graduates of Democracy;
• Gender Equality Conference 2017.

The EST Equality campaign is about more than correcting a gender imbalance politics, it is about empowering women across the world. It is about girls in every country growing up to see women Ambassadors and Presidents and knowing that they can be Ambassadors and Presidents one day. It is about including and empowering women in the decision-making process. It is about bridging the path and leading by example so other organizations and institutions can do so in the future to do so. It is a campaign for Human Rights.

This topic is particularly important in this day and age when:

• One in three women has been victim of sexual assault;
• Women compose only 22% of members of world parliaments;
• Worldwide, more than 700 million women alive today were married as children;
• 4/5 victims of human trafficking are women;
• Transgender women account for the largest group of victims of hate crimes;
• Ethnicity and gender create especially large pay gaps for minority women.

This is why we need EST for equality.

The EST For Equality Campaign has been founded upon the EST President Carlota Nunez Strutt’s 2016-17 commitments for social justice and equality.

Contact: president@esthinktank.com.