Women's Human Rights Resources Database

This article analyzes the property rights of Hindu women in Bangladesh. Bangladesh is a signatory of the UN Charter, of CEDAW* and of ICESCR**. Formal equality is also constitutionally enshrined. However, in practice, inheritance is governed by the customary laws. The prevailing principle of inheritance law under the prevalent Dayabagha system is the doctrine of religious efficacy. This system excludes women because the majority of people who are eligible to inherit are male. Moreover, female heirs can only take a limited interest in inherited property, meaning that upon her death, her property passes on to the heirs of the last male owner. Women can only hold absolute ownership in Stridhan, or female estate, which is earned through labour and gifts. The author argues that these customary inheritance laws are discriminatory and infringe Hindu women’s rights. She concludes that legal reform is needed to ensure Bangladesh meets its commitments under constitutional and international law.  *Note: with reservations to articles 2 and 16(1)(c)**Note: with reservations to articles 2 and 3 

In this article, the author discusses the discrepancies between international law and domestic practice in women's right of access to land. The article begins by outlining various means for women to access land, such as acquisition on first registration, acquisition through inheritance and acquisition through direct purchase. The author emphasizes the importance of a right of access to agricultural credit and discusses various options for women to access land including credit through cooperatives and through special financial institutions. In conclusion, the article examines prospects for change in law reform, rights awareness programs, progressive judiciary and community-level support groups.

This article provides a framework for analyzing the right to housing in order to ensure that women can have equal, effective enjoyment of this right. In Part 1, the author argues that the right to housing must incorporate a substantive understanding of women's equality rights. The article also reviews considerations of equality and non-discrimination under international law. Part 2 assesses the extent to which a right to housing under international law conforms to the requirements of substantive equality. The author concludes by arguing that incorporating equality and non-discrimination into the right to housing would create a right more responsive to women's experiences.

Women form the majority world’s poorest people and women in poverty is a complex problem. In this article the author calls for a gendered human rights approach to poverty. The author looks in particular at how, in many countries around the world, the law contributes to women’s poverty, both through legal limitations and customary discrimination. One area in particular that the article highlights is legal barriers preventing women from owning property and how this puts them in a precarious position if they become widowed or divorced. The author calls for substantive equality in approaching these problems, as opposed to formal equality. Finally, the article evaluates a number of development policies that have been put into place, such as conditional cash transfer programs and microfinancing schemes. 

This article discusses two issues that disproportionately affect women and children in the United Kingdom: common intention constructive trusts and the application of sale under the Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996. Regarding the former issue, the author argues that applying the common intention constructive trust to family home disputes has deprived women of an interest commensurate with their contributions, largely because the courts have often regarded non-financial contributions as insufficient to secure an interest. Regarding the latter issue, the author observes that the courts have often prioritized the interests of creditors over those of co-owners and their children. Notably, this tendency raises issues under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. By ousting women and children from their familial homes, decisions that allow creditors to force the sale of a debtor’s home potentially infringe upon entitlement to a private family life and home

This article addresses the intersections between property and personal rights as they pertain to domestic violence in the United States. The author argues that the legal system must address housing rights in situations of domestic violence by focusing on each party's dignity, the importance of home, and ending domestic violence instead of focusing on safety alone. The paper discusses the three scenarios that a woman subjected to abuse might choose when she shares the home with her abuser: separate from her partner by excluding him from the shared home while she stays in it, separate from him by leaving the shared home, and continuing the relationship and staying in the shared home. Importantly, laws addressing domestic violence in a shared home do not adequately address rights surrounding that shared home. The author maintains that the issue of the home needs greater attention for three reasons: domestic violence is a leading cause of homelessness; the struggle over rights to a shared home can increase violence against the woman; and a woman who decides to continue living in a shared home with her abuser receives next to no legal support. This article criticizes the civil protection order (CPO) laws in place in the United States and proposes a renewed anti-domestic violence movement that focuses on the right to a home. Under this new theory, legislative changes could include the creation of a set of factors to guide the vacate decision and to increase the number of housing options for both women subjected to abuse and men who perpetrate abuse.

This article begins by establishing women's land and property rights within international human rights law. The author then moves to examine current systems of land tenure in Africa and the extent to which women are able to access their property rights. The article notes the discrepancy between women's responsibility for ensuring the family's food supply and the general lack of recognition of women's rights in land. The article undertakes a historical review of the development of legal systems in Africa and includes several country case studies focusing on the laws governing women's property rights.

This Note looks at barriers to women's property ownership in property restitution programs in transitional justice settings. It evaluates the existing international legal framework and considers Liberia, Rwanda, Mozambique, and Guatamala as case studies of transitional justice schemes. The author emphasizes that the existing international framework needs to more explicitly recognize the equal right to post-conflict property restitution through a stronger version of the Pinheiro Principles. Domestic governments and local lawmakers should use the transitional period to reform formal law and and eliminate discriminatory property provisions. Customary law should also be reconciled with these changes to the extent that it is also discriminatory, and formal law should step in with the recourse for women when discriminatory customary law cannot be reconciled. Finally, law reform should be supplemented with improved enforcement mechanisms, land redistribution programs, educational efforts to inform displaced women of their rights, and the inclusion of civil society and displaced women in the development of the transitional justice scheme.

The central position of Indigenous women in food production in Cameroon means that the loss of ancestral land and natural resource development has contributed to the marginalization of indigenous women. The author provides a comprehensive discussion of the history of various Indigenous peoples and the customary notion of land rights in Cameroon. While land is regarded to be collectively held, Indigenous women are largely excluded from decision-making in relation to land. Customary law grants no land rights to women which can only be attained through marriage. The author outlines the various legal mechanisms, both domestic and international, which can be applied to land rights.  The challenges Indigenous women face in relation to land rights include lack of proper recognition, exacerbated poverty, and marginalization. The author advocates for legislative attention towards Indigenous women and their participation in decision-making. 

The author discusses issues of land reform and gender equality in the context of post- genocide Rwanda. Prior to land reforms in 1999 that gave women the same property rights as men, Rwandan women were not allowed to inherit or own land, and only had secondary property rights through their fathers or husbands. The author argues that despite these legal changes, there are still major social obstacles to gender equality that are manifested through resistance to granting equal inheritance rights to daughters and sons, adherence to assumptions of female inferiority, and the persistence of informal marriages in which wives remain unprotected by the new law. The author identifies land scarcity, vestiges of discriminatory legal systems, and gendered power structures as underlying causes of these social obstacles, and suggests that many currently proposed solutions are inadequate because they fail to address these underlying causes. The author suggests that this discussion of property rights and barriers to gender equality is not limited to Rwanda and can be applied to the international development community. Aparna Polavarapu, Procuring Meaningful Land Rights for the Women of Rwanda (2011) 14 Yale Human Rts & Dev LJ 105.

This paper aims to provide a nuanced view of the effects of property rights on women’s empowerment at different life stages and in different social circumstances, using an intersectional approach. The authors stress the importance of analyzing the interactions between gender and other vectors of inequality as well as legal pluralism when studying the relationship between Nepalese women's property rights and empowerment. The authors found that women have stronger claims to personal property than to joint property of households. They also found that women’s social position within the household impacts her property rights more than caste or ethnicity. Generally, newly married daughters-in-law have weaker rights compared to wives of the male head of the family. Women’s relationship with their husbands also heavily influences property rights, those in cooperative marriages being advantaged. Women’s property rights in Nepal are intricately linked to shifting social relationships. Therefore, future research must take this dynamism into account.

The Forest Rights Act (FRA) is legislation meant to advance the rights to land for Indigenous forest peoples in India. The author identifies two main challenges to the implementation of the FRA as the incompatibility of the legislation with Advisasi's legal traditions, and the reliance on elected officials to work towards justice. The legislation operates amidst colonial legal frameworks and neoliberal ideology. The author discusses the colonial legal past of India and the recent trend towards recognition of human rights and Indigenous human rights reflected by international law instruments such as UNDRIP. The author argues that these rights have not been realized in reality, and provides the protest of a hydroelectricity project in Chamba District as an example of the government’s disregard for the FRA. The author concludes by emphasizing that continued government neglect of the FRA risks ‘hollowing’ out the efficacy of the land rights that the legislation grants.