Founded in 1991 NEWW is an international communication and resource network supporting dialogue, informational exchange, and activism among those concerned about the status of women in Central and Eastern Europe, the Newly Independent States, and the Russian Federation. NEWW coordinates research and advocacy that supports women’s equality and full participation in all aspects of public and private life.
NEWW is an NGO in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. With members in more than 30 countries NEWW is among the largest and most respected networks in CEE/NIS, and is a trusted source of expertise, resources and information about gender in democratizing societies.
NEWW connects women’s advocates in who work in partnership to promote women’s rights and to strengthen women’s role within civil society. NEWW members represent all strata of society – human rights activists, writers, students, journalists, lawyers, parliamentarians, professors, artists, union organizers, health care workers and feminist activists.
NEWW’s overarching goal is to support the formation of independent women’s movements and to strengthen the capacities of women and women’s NGOs to influence policy regarding women’s lives.
NEWW supports and promotes projects and activism inspired by NEWW Statement of Principles:
- Women’s full and equal participation in the creation of a just and inclusive civil society.
- Women’s rights to healthcare, fitness, reproductive choice and control over decisions of when and under what conditions to give birth.
- Women’s and men’s right to be free of discrimination of any kind –structural or legal in employment in both the public and the private sector (including enterprises in which foreign investors participate) and international organizations and agencies with no assumption that the essential work in the domestic sphere is naturally and exclusively women’s responsibility.
- Women’s (and men’s) right to economic justice, including an adequate and accessible safety-net for vulnerable members of society.
- Women’s (and men’s) right to be free of violence in the private and the public sphere, to be free of war, state violence and domination in all its forms. Women’s freedom of sexual expression and pleasure, including everyone’s right to their sexual orientation.
- Women’s (and men’s) right to be free of racial and ethnic hatred.
- Women’s (and men’s) right to full public expression of ideas-verbal or visual-without censorship of any kind.