American Civil Liberties Union

Women's Rights:
The ACLU's Women's Rights Project was co-founded in 1972 by Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Through litigation, community outreach, advocacy and public education, WRP empowers poor women, women of color and immigrant women who have been victimized by gender bias and face pervasive barriers to equality. Learn more about the WRP.


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Womens Rights : Human Rights : Press Releases

Abused Domestic Workers of Diplomats Seek Justice From International Commission (11/15/2007)
NEW YORK –Domestic workers who were exploited and abused in the U.S. by foreign diplomats petitioned an international commission today because U.S. domestic law denies them their rights and a way to seek justice.

Hearing Brings Modern-Day Slavery to Light, ACLU Urges State Department to Play Its Role in Stopping It (10/18/2007)
Washington, DC – Modern-day slavery exists in the shadows, but it is alive and well, said witnesses today at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the reauthorization of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. The American Civil Liberties Union is urging Congress to add new safeguards that prevent the abuse, exploitation and trafficking of domestic employees by foreign diplomats and to remove the shield of diplomatic immunity that prevents these victims from holding the diplomats accountable.

Top U.N. Body on Women’s Issues Must Address Rights of Incarcerated Girls, Says ACLU (03/06/2007)
NEW YORK - The American Civil Liberties Union today called on the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women not to neglect the human rights of girls in government custody. According to the organization, incarcerated girls are particularly vulnerable and subject to violence, abuse and neglect. The priority theme of the 51st annual meeting of U.N. Commission on the Status Women, which meets this week in New York, is “the elimination of discrimination and violence against the girl child.”

ACLU Charges Kuwait Government and Diplomats With Abusing Domestic Workers (01/17/2007)
NEW YORK - The American Civil Liberties Union today charged the country of Kuwait and a Kuwaiti diplomat and his wife with trafficking three women and forcing them to work as domestic employees and childcare workers against their will under slavery-like conditions.

ACLU and Public Health Groups Urge Appeals Court to Reject Bush Global AIDS Gag (12/21/2006)
WASHINGTON - The federal government is illegally restricting the ability of U.S. health organizations to end the global HIV/AIDS epidemic, charged the American Civil Liberties Union and more than 25 public health and human rights organizations in a legal brief filed today.

Bush Global AIDS Gag is Harmful to Public Health, Groups Tell Appeals Court (11/14/2006)
WASHINGTON - The American Civil Liberties Union and 26 public health experts, human rights and HIV/AIDS organizations are urging a federal appeals court to reject a government policy that restricts the ability of U.S. groups to end the spread of HIV/AIDS in other countries.

Undocumented Workers Bring Plea for Non-Discrimination to Human Rights Body (11/01/2006)
NEW YORK - The American Civil Liberties Union, the National Employment Law Project and the Transnational Legal Clinic at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law today filed a petition urging the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to find the United States in violation of its universal human rights obligations by failing to protect millions of undocumented workers from exploitation and discrimination in the workplace.

Global AIDS Gag Holds Critical Funding Captive to Politics (11/09/2005)
NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union today expressed deep concern about a U.S. government policy that ties the hands of public health service providers and those who work with them in the global fight against AIDS.

United Nations Body Looks at Housing Conditions for Women in America (10/17/2005)
WASHINGTON -- The American Civil Liberties Union is among dozens of groups and individuals providing testimony to the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing as part of a three-day consultation on women and housing in North America, which ends today. The ACLU and its clients, who are victims of housing discrimination, have testified on the poor housing conditions faced by victims of domestic violence and immigrant domestic workers in the United States.

ACLU Defends Ethiopian Woman Kept in Forced Labor in New Jersey (12/21/2004)
NEWARK, NJ-The American Civil Liberties Union today filed a lawsuit on behalf of an Ethiopian woman who was brought to the United States and forced to work without pay as a live-in domestic and childcare worker for a New Jersey couple, in violation of state, federal and international laws.

On International Women's Day, the ACLU Calls on the United States To Ratify UN Convention on Ending Discrimination Against Women (03/08/2002)
NEW YORK - The American Civil Liberties Union today joins other groups around the world to celebrate International Women's Day. Never before has it been more clear that all women must stand together to oppose the obstacles that they share -- violence in their homes and on their streets, discrimination in their jobs, repressive political, cultural, and religious forces, and infringements on their reproductive choices. 

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