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STORY: UN / STREEP
TRT: 2:14
SOURCE: UNTV
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 5 MARCH 2010, NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, United Nations headquarters
2. Various shots, Actress Meryl Streep with Taina Bien-Aimé and Rachel Mayanja
3. Wide shot, conference room
4. Cutaway, audience
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Meryl Streep, Actress and Human Rights Activist:
“A government that allows discriminatory laws means that they deliberately, deliberately deny women and girls access to justice.”
6. Cutaway, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s wife, Ban Soon-taek, in audience
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Meryl Streep, Actress and Human Rights Activist:
“What is the impact of these laws on women’s lives? It’s in the statistics that we read, in the dry stories, in the newspaper but the most vivid way that we can understand what the impact is on women and girls is to see it embodied by an artist.”
8. Cutaway, audience
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Sarah Jones, Actress:
“It basically states in Japan that women cannot remarry after divorce until the government says ok. That is six months time women must wait by law but a man can do whatever he wants as soon as he wants to after divorce. Only women have to face this problem.”
10. Cutaway, audience
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Sarah Jones, Actress:
“Even though I was not here last time for the Beijing event, I was only 10 years old. And five years later, I was a mom myself. So when I think about that, I tell people my story, and you know, sometimes they want to blame my situation on my background that I am Latina or on the laws in DR (Dominican Republic) but I always remind especially Americans because in way, it’s very appropriate that I’m speaking for the United States right now. Laws here, they allow early marriages too.”
12. Pan right, standing ovation
13. Med shot, Sarah Jones
14. Wide shot, standing ovation
15. Wide shot, end of event
Academy award winning actress and human rights activist Meryl Streep promoted women's rights at the United Nations (UN) and joined Tony-award winning writer and actress Sarah Jones in campaigning against discriminatory laws against women.
The event organized by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and Equality Now!, an international human rights organization, featured a performance by Jones.
Streep, who spoke to an audience full of diplomats, women’s rights advocates, UN staff and the media before Jones’ performance, said that any government that allows discriminatory laws against women is deliberately denying women and girls access to justice.
Meryl, who was only there for the beginning of the event, introduced Jones’ performance saying that the most vivid way to see the impact of discriminatory laws on women and girls is to see it “embodied by an artist.”
Jones later took the stage and portrayed the lives of several women in various parts of the world. In her performance entitled “Women Can’t Wait” she imitated the voices and emotions of women and girls from India, Japan, Jordan, Israel, the United States, France and Kenya.
As a Japanese woman, she talked about the discriminatory laws in the country that prohibit women from remarrying after a divorce without government approval.
As a Jordanian woman, she talked about “moral crimes” of adultery that women were unfairly accused of and even continue to be killed for. As a Kenyan girl, she talked about the practice of female genital mutilation or FGM.
As a 20 year-old Dominican woman and a victim of domestic violence living in the United States, she criticized governments that allowed early marriages.
Jones received a standing ovation at the end of her performance.
Both Jones and Streep are advocates for women’s rights with Equality Now!.
