Jewish actress Debra Messing has challenged Ivanka Trump to help improve the lot of women and children in America.

The Will and Grace star said it wasn’t enough for Ms Trump, who is an official, unpaid adviser to her father, Donald Trump, to say women’s issues were important to her.

“It’s time to do something. You can change the lives of millions of women and children just by telling your dad stories about real people who are suffering,” she told the audience at the 2017 GLAAD Media Awards in New York:

Speaking as “one Jewish mother to another”, Ms Messing told the president’s daughter  to “stop blindly defending” her father and start “defending what you say you believe in”.

“You can’t just write #womenwhowork and think you’re advancing feminism. You need to be a woman who does good work.

“Imagine how you’ll feel, sitting at Passover Seder, if you can tell your children that you fought for justice and freedom.”

Ms Messing, who has been highly critical of Mr Trump over LGBTQ issues, called him the the “very bad and very orange man in our White House”.

The actress made the remarks as she received an Excellence in Media honour at the awards, which recognise branches of the media for representing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues.