As public officials, advocates for women’s human rights, policy makers, organizations and individuals, we sign this Contract with Women of the USA® to implement the Platform for Action adopted September 1995 at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women by consensus of 189 governments, including the United States of America.
We pledge our mutual commitment to the goal of equality and empowerment
for American women, who are the continuing majority of our nation and states.
We pledge to work together to overcome discrimination based on sex, race, class, age, immigration status, sexual orientation, religion, and disability. We seek to end social, economic and political inequities, violence and the human rights abuses that still confront millions of women and girls in our country.
We enter into this Contract with Women of the USA® for ourselves and for future generations -- to achieve our vision of a healthy planet and healthy nations, states and communities, with peace, equality, and justice for all.
1. Empowerment of Women
We pledge to work for empowerment of women in all their diversity through equal participation in decision making and equal access to shared power in government, in all spheres and at every level of society.
2. Sharing Family Responsibilities
We pledge to work for equal sharing of family responsibilities, recognition and respect for the diversity of families, and for practices and polices that enhance the multiple roles, security and well-being of women and girls, men and boys.
3. Ending the Burden of Poverty
We pledge to work for economic justice and to end the increasing burden of poverty on women and their children, who are a majority of the poor. Recognizing the value of women’s unpaid and underpaid labor to our families, communities and economy, we support a living wage for all workers and adequate funding for welfare and other social safely nets, child care, education and job training, and access to collateral-free credit for women-owned small businesses.
4. High Quality, Affordable Heath Care
We pledge to work to reaffirm the rights of women and girls, regardless of income or where they live, to high quality, accessible, affordable and respectful physical and mental health care, based on sound women-focused research.
5. Sexual and Reproductive Rights
We pledge to work to reaffirm and uphold the sexual and reproductive rights of all women, including their right to control their own reproductive lives free of coercion, violence and harassment.
6. Workplace Rights
We pledge to work for guarantees of equal pay for work of comparable value and an end to discriminatory hiring and sexual harassment. We support family-friendly workplace practices, job training and opportunities programs, strengthening of affirmative action, employees’ rights to organize unions and to work in safe, healthy working environments.
7. Educational Equity
We pledge to work for educational equity for women and girls, including creation and strengthening of gender-fair multicultural curricula and teaching techniques, equal opportunities and access for girls and women throughout their lives to education, career development, training and scholarships, educational administration and policy making.
8. Ending Violence Against Women
We pledge to work for policies and programs to end violence against women and children in every form and to ensure that violence against women and children is understood as a violation of their human rights and civil rights.
9. Protecting a Healthy Environment
We pledge to work to end environmental degradation and eliminate toxic chemicals, nuclear wastes and other pollutants that threaten our health, our communities, country and planet. We uphold active roles by government at all levels and public and private sectors to continue and expand environmental protection programs.
10. Women as Peace Makers
We salute women’s leading roles in peace movements and conflict resolution and pledge to work for their inclusion in policy making at all levels aimed at preventing wars, halting the international arms trade and eliminating all nuclear testing. We seek reductions in military spending and conversion of military facilities to socially productive purposes.
11. Honor International Commitments and Ratify CEDAW
We pledge to support the commitments made by the United States government to implement the UN Platform for Action, which constitutes a contract with the world’s women. We call on the United States Senate to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which the United States has signed.
12. A Long-Term National Plan to Achieve Equality
We who are state and federal policy makers pledge to work in partnership with women’s organizations to develop and enforce a long-term plan to achieve our goals of equality and empowerment for women. We support the re-establishment of a national Advisory Panel on Women and the creation or strengthening of similar panels or commissions in each state, to ensure that governments at every level take the necessary steps to implement this Contract.
link to: Join elected officials nationwide who ENDORSE the Contract with Women of the USA®
State Legislators Initiative
We implement the Contract through our work with state legislators nationwide. As the “national staff” to an ever-growing number of elected officials, the Center works to transform the Contract’s principles into policies and laws that ensure women’s human rights – and improve women’s lives. Hundreds of state legislators have joined the Center’s National Honor Roll of State Legislators by publicly endorsing the Contract with Women of the USA®
