What does equality mean for you?

I think no matter where somebody lives, no matter how old they are, no matter what their ethnic background is. No matter what their sexual orientation, their gender identity, everybody is equal before the law and everybody must be respected accordingly. - Equality has several dimensions. There’s political equality, economic equality and social equality. Political equality is primarily about the right to vote, to join in self-government which is one of the rights in the Universal Declaration. Social equality is primarily about discrimination and equality of opportunity so that people are not disempowered by the society they live in and equally economic equality is about giving people the means to lead lives in which they themselves have the ability to exercise rights.

Now this is an important point. If you are homeless, starving, discriminated against, ill and unable to get medical attention, you may theoretically have rights but you can’t exercise them and so the critical point about human rights campaigning is not only to insist that people have rights, it’s to enable them to exercise those rights. - But for me it’s that sense of we are all human and that is the base, that’s where it begins and ends you know? And if we’re not celebrating our differences, then at least come back to the fact that we are all human and that to me is equality.

Equality is just looking at somebody and not kind of putting them on a lower level playing field because of who they are, because of where they come from, whether it’s you know their race, their class. Whether they’re a man or woman, it’s about making sure that everybody is starting life here. And everybody feels empowered to progress through life knowing that their differences don’t hinder them. - Equality for me is fairness.

Where, when no one is, you’re not being seen

as above or you’re not being seen as less and when you’re able to be giving to access the basic human rights, the basic information, basic necessity of life. That means equality. You’re being given the same chance as everyone or you’re being treated as everyone else. That’s the meaning of equality for me.