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UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing website reference:

Women & Housing - http://www.ohchr.org/english/issues/housing/women.htm

 

Attached is the Report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, Mr. Miloon Kothari, for the UN 2006 - Women & Adequate Housing.

 

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http://ap.ohchr.org/documents/E/CHR/resolutions/E-CN_4-RES-2005-25.doc

 

OFFICE OF THE UN HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Women’s equal ownership, access to and control over land and the equal rights to own property and to adequate housing

 

 

Human Rights Resolution 2005/25

 

            The Commission on Human Rights,

            Guided by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination,

            Reaffirming the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women,[i][i] and the outcome document of the special session of the General Assembly entitled “Women 2000:  gender equality, development and peace for the twenty-first century”,[ii][ii]

            Recalling the United Nations Millennium Declaration and the declarations and programmes of actions of and follow-up processes to the United Nations world conferences summits held in Vienna,[iii][iii] Cairo,[iv][iv] Copenhagen,[v][v] Istanbul,[vi][vi] Durban[vii][vii] and Johannesburg,[viii][viii]

            Reaffirming the Declaration adopted by the Commission on the Status of Women at its forty-ninth session as a follow-up to the Fourth World Conference on Women and to the twenty‑third special session of the General Assembly, which emphasizes that the full and effective implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action is essential to achieving the internationally agreed development goals, including those contained in the Millennium Declaration, and stresses the need to ensure the integration of a gender perspective in the High-level Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly on the review of the Millennium Declaration,

            Recalling its resolution 2004/21 of 16 April 2004 on adequate housing as a component on the right to an adequate standard of living, and resolution 2003/22 of 22 April 2003 on women’s equal ownership, access to and control over land and the equal rights to own property and to adequate housing,

            Reaffirming that all human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated and that women’s equal ownership, access to and control over land and the equal right to own property and to adequate housing contribute to the full realization of human rights,

            Recognizing that women, particularly women living in extreme poverty and victims of domestic violence, continue to suffer multiple or aggravated forms of discrimination, inter alia on the grounds of property, as well as from discriminatory treatment in all areas decisive to the attainment of adequate housing,

            Reaffirming the human right to be free from all forms of discrimination and the equal right of women and men to the enjoyment of all civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights,

            Mindful of the fact that elimination of discrimination against women and the achievement of substantive equality of women and girls require consideration of women’s specific socio‑economic context,

            Welcoming the findings of the former Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences (see E/CN.4/2000/68/Add.5), in particular, the recognition that women’s poverty, together with a lack of alternative housing options, make it difficult for women to leave violent family situations, and reaffirming that forced relocation and forced eviction from home and land have a disproportionately severe impact on women, including when these are committed by spouses or in-laws, and encouraging the new Special Rapporteur to continue to take these findings into consideration in her future work,

            Recognizing that poverty is a major obstacle to women’s full realization of housing, land and property rights,

            Convinced that the lack of adequate housing can make women more vulnerable to various forms of violence, including domestic violence, and in particular that the lack of housing alternatives may limit many women’s ability to leave violent situations,


            Stressing that the impact of gender-based discrimination and violence against women on women’s equal ownership of, access to and control over land and the equal rights to own property and to adequate housing is acute, particularly during complex emergency situations, reconstruction and rehabilitation,

            Recognizing that the Secretary-General has linked the growing prevalence of HIV/AIDS in women with laws that inhibit the full enjoyment of women’s rights to land ownership and inheritance, and that he has called for positive change and attention to women’s empowerment and protection of women’s housing and land rights to make women less vulnerable to HIV/AIDS,

            Reaffirming the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS, agreed to at the twenty‑sixth special session of the General Assembly convened in 2001, which calls for all Governments to strengthen or enforce legislation, regulations and other measures to eliminate all forms of discrimination and to ensure the full enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by people living with HIV/AIDS and members of vulnerable groups, in particular, to ensure their access to inheritance and legal protections,

            Recognizing that laws, policies, customs, traditions and practices that act to restrict women’s equal access to credit and loans also prevent women from owning and inheriting land, property and housing and exclude women from participating fully in development processes, are discriminatory and contribute to increasing the poverty of women and girls,

            Convinced that international, regional and local trade, finance and investment policies should be designed in such a way that they promote gender equality in terms of ownership of, access to and control over land and the rights to own property and to adequate housing and other productive resources and do not undermine women’s capacity to acquire and retain these resources,

            Convinced also of the need to address specifically the impact of natural disasters on women’s and children’s adequate housing needs and to ensure that a human rights approach, including a gender perspective, is taken when addressing this impact,

            1.         Takes note with interest of the findings of the progress report on the study on women and adequate housing (E/CN.4/2005/43) submitted by the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living and on the right to non-discrimination in accordance with Commission on Human Rights resolution 2003/22;

            2.         Reaffirms women’s right to an adequate standard of living, including adequate housing, as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and urges Governments to comply fully with their international and regional obligations and commitments concerning land tenure and the equality of women to own, have access and to control property, land and housing, irrespective of their marital status, and to an adequate standard of living, including adequate housing;

            3.         Affirms that discrimination in law and practice against women with respect to having access to, acquiring and securing land, property and housing, as well as financing for land, property and housing, constitutes a violation of women’s human right to protection against discrimination and may affect the realization of other human rights;

            4.         Reaffirms Commission on the Status of Women resolution 42/1, which, inter alia, urges States to design and revise laws to ensure that women are accorded full and equal rights to own land and other property, and the right to adequate housing, including through the right to inheritance, and to undertake administrative reforms and other necessary measures to give women the same right as men to credit, capital, appropriate technologies, access to markets and information;

            5.         Encourages Governments to support the transformation of customs and traditions that discriminate against women and deny women security of tenure and equal ownership of, access to and control over land and equal rights to own property and to adequate housing, to ensure the right of women to equal treatment in land and agrarian reform as well as in land resettlement schemes and in ownership of property and in adequate housing, and to take other measures to increase access to land and housing for women living in poverty, particularly female heads of household, including through access to housing subsidies;


            6.         Calls upon States to urgently address discrimination, inequality and historical injustices experienced by women in vulnerable situations, inter alia, indigenous women, in particular to secure their equal ownership, access to and control over land, and equal rights to own property and to adequate housing;

            7.         Reaffirms the obligation of States to take all appropriate measures, including special measures, inter alia those derived from their obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, to eliminate discrimination against women by any person, organization or enterprise, and recommends that Governments encourage financial and lending institutions to ensure that their policies and practices do not discriminate against women;

            8.         Urges Governments to address the issue of forced relocation and forced evictions from home and land and to eliminate its disproportionate impact on women;

            9.         Recommends that international financial institutions, regional, national and local housing financing institutions and other credit facilities facilitate the participation of women and take into account their views in order to remove discriminatory policies and practices, giving special consideration to single women and households headed by women, and that these institutions evaluate and measure progress to this end;

            10.       Invites Governments to take further appropriate measures to address the increasing rate of homelessness or inadequate housing for women, including its underlying factors, such as gender inequality, HIV/AIDS, poverty and violence;

            11.       Encourages Governments, specialized agencies, funds, programmes and other organizations of the United Nations system, as well as other international organizations and non‑governmental organizations, to provide judges, lawyers, political and other public officials, community leaders and other concerned persons, as appropriate, with information and human rights education concerning women’s equal ownership of, access to and control over land and the equal rights to own property and to adequate housing;

            12.       Invites the Secretary-General to encourage all organizations and bodies of the United Nations system, individually and collectively, in particular the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), the United Nations Development Fund for Women and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), to undertake further initiatives that promote women’s equal ownership of, access to and control over land and the equal rights to own property and to adequate housing, and allocate further resources for studying, documenting and addressing the impact of complex emergency situations and the HIV/AIDS pandemic, particularly with respect to women’s equal rights to own land, property and adequate housing;

            13.       Invites the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and other relevant international organizations, within their respective mandates, to address discrimination against women with respect to land, property and adequate housing in their cooperation programmes and field activities;

            14.       Encourages all the human rights treaty bodies, in particular the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, special procedures and other human rights mechanisms of the Commission and the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights as well as all United Nations bodies regularly and systematically to take a gender perspective into account in the implementation of their mandates and to integrate the content of the present resolution into their work, as appropriate;

            15.       Encourages the United Nations Housing Rights Programme to take into account the content of the present resolution and to continue its regional consultations, with the participation of representatives of Governments, United Nations agencies, intergovernmental organizations and non-governmental organizations;

            16.       Requests the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living and on the right to non-discrimination, within his mandate, to submit a final report to the Commission at its sixty-second session containing the study on women and adequate housing;

            17.       Also requests the Special Rapporteur to specifically consider the impact of natural disasters on women’s adequate housing;

            18.       Further requests the Special Rapporteur to cooperate with the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, in the elaboration of model provisions to protect women’s rights in housing and domestic violence legislation, to ensure women’s full and equal access to national legal aid schemes to protect their housing, land and property rights in cases of divorce, inheritance and domestic violence;

            19.       Invites all States that have not done so to respond to the questionnaire prepared by the Special Rapporteur;

            20.       Decides to continue its consideration of this question at its sixty-third session under the agenda item entitled “Economic, social and cultural rights”.

51st meeting
15 April 2005

[Adopted without a vote.  See chap. X, E/CN.4/2005/L.10/Add.10]







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[i][i]  Report of the Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, 4-15 September 1995 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.96.IV.13), chap. I, resolution 1.

[ii][ii]  Resolution S-23/3, annex.

[iii][iii]  Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, adopted by the World Conference on Human Rights on 25 June 1993 (A/CONF.157/24 (Part I)), chap. III.

[iv][iv]  Programme of Action adopted by the International Conference on Population and Development on 13 September 1994, Report of the International Conference on Population and Development, Cairo, 5-13 September 1994 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.95.XIII.18), chap. I, resolution 1, annex; Report of the Ad Hoc Committee of the Whole of the twenty-first special session of the General Assembly, Official Records of the General Assembly,
Twenty-first special session, Supplement No. 3
(S-21/5/Rev.1).

[v][v]  Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development, adopted by the World Summit for Social Development on 12 March 1995, Report of the World Summit for Social Development, Copenhagen, 6-12 March 1995 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.96.IV.8), chap. I,


resolution 1, annex; Report of the Ad Hoc Committee of the Whole of the twenty-fourth special session of the General Assembly, Official Records of the General Assembly, Twenty-fourth special session, Supplement No. 3 (A/S-24/8/Rev.1).

[vi][vi]  Istanbul Declaration on Human Settlements and Habitat Agenda, adopted by the second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) on 14 June 1996, Report of the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II), Istanbul, 3-14 June 1996 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.97.IV.6), chap. I, resolution I, annexes I and II; Report of the Ad Hoc Committee of the Whole of the twenty-fifth special session of the General Assembly, Official Records of the General Assembly, Twenty-fifth special session, Supplement No. 3 (A/S-25/7/Rev.1).

[vii][vii]  Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, adopted by the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance on 8 September 2001 (A/CONF.189/12 and Corr.1), chap. I.

[viii][viii]  Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development and Plan of Implementation, adopted by the World Summit on Sustainable Development on 4 September 2002, Report of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg, South Africa, 26 August-4 September 2002 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.03.II.A.1 and corrigendum), chap. I, resolution 1, annex and resolution 2, annex.

________________________________________________________________

OFFICE OF THE UN HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

http://ap.ohchr.org/Documents/E/SUBCOM/resolutions/E-CN_4-SUB_2-RES-1998-15.doc                                                            

             Women and the right to land, property and adequate housing

                                                  Sub-Commission resolution 1998/15

 

        The Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities,

        Recalling Commission on Human Rights resolution 1998/51 of 17 April 1998 calling for the integration of the human rights of women throughout the United Nations system,

        Recalling also Sub-Commission resolutions 1997/19 of 27 August 1997, entitled “Women and the right to adequate housing and to land and property”, and 1997/9 of 22 August 1997, entitled “Implementation of the human rights of women and the girl child”,

        Recalling further the recognition and legal foundations of the right to adequate housing contained in, inter alia, articles 7, 12, 17 and 25, paragraph 1, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; article 2, paragraph 2, and article 11, paragraph 1, of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; article 2, paragraph 1, and articles 17 and 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; article 5 (e) (iii) of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; articles 4 and 27 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and article 14, paragraph 2 (g) and (h) and article 16 (h) of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women,

        Reaffirming the right to be free from discrimination based on sex and the equal right of men and women to the enjoyment of all civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights as stipulated in, inter alia, the International Bill of Human Rights,

        Bearing in mind the Habitat Agenda (A/CONF.165/14), adopted by the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II), and the Platform for Action (A/CONF.177/20) adopted by the Fourth World Conference on Women,

        Concerned that as a result of the discrimination faced by women with respect to acquiring and securing land, property and housing, the number of women living in poverty is increasing disproportionately to the number of men and that women's experiences of poverty are particularly severe and prohibit women from escaping the poverty trap,

        Recognizing that the existence and perpetuation of gender-biased laws, policies and traditions which deny women credit and loans and keep women from owning and inheriting land, property and housing and which exclude women from fully participating in development processes discriminate against women and create insecure and inadequate housing and living conditions,

        Deeply concerned that inadequate and insecure housing and living conditions give rise to serious mental and physical health problems for women and contribute to, cause and are often the result of violence against women,

        Stressing that the impact of discrimination and violence against women on women's ability to access and secure land, property and housing is particularly acute for women who are internally displaced as a result of armed conflict situations and development projects,

        Concerned that international and regional trade, finance and investment policies often increase gender inequality in terms of access to land, property, housing and other productive resources and undermine women's capacity to gain and retain these resources,

        Mindful that women's inequality will not always be remedied by the identical treatment of men and women and that adequate remedies may require that women be treated differently from men based on a consideration of women's specific socio-economic context,

        1.             Affirms that the discrimination faced by women with respect to acquiring and securing land, property and housing, as well as financing for land, property and housing, constitutes a violation of women's human rights to equality, protection against discrimination and to the equal enjoyment of the right to an adequate standard of living, including adequate housing;

        2.             Strongly urges Governments to comply fully with all of their international and regional obligations and commitments concerning women's rights to land, property, inheritance, adequate housing, including security of tenure, and an adequate standard of living;

        3.             Urges Governments to take all necessary measures in order to amend and/or repeal laws and policies pertaining to land, property and housing which deny women security of tenure and equal access and rights to land, property and housing, to encourage the transformation of customs and traditions which deny women security of tenure and equal access and rights to land, property and housing, and to adopt and enforce legislation which protects and promotes women's rights to own, inherit, lease or rent land, property and housing;

        4.             Encourages Governments, international agencies and non-governmental organizations to provide judges, lawyers, political and other public officials, community leaders and other concerned persons with information and human rights education concerning women's rights to land, property and housing;

        5.             Recommends that Governments, international financial institutions, local lending agents, housing finance institutions and other credit facilities review their policies and eliminate those which discriminate against women and keep women from securing financial resources necessary to access and secure land, property and housing and, in this regard, that special consideration be given to single women and households headed by women;

        6.             Calls upon that the international trade, investment and financial institutions, in particular the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, take fully into account the human rights implications for women of their policies;

        7.             Invites Governments, the United Nations Development Programme, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements and the United Nations Development Fund for Women to allocate resources for further documentation of the impact of internal displacement as a result of armed conflict situations and development projects on women, particularly with respect to women's access to land, property and housing;

        8.             Invites the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, in pursuance of her mandate and in coordination with the appropriate United Nations bodies to undertake initiatives that promote women's rights to land, property and to an adequate standard of living, including adequate housing;

        9.             Invites the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women to pay special attention to women's rights to land, property and an adequate standard of living, including adequate housing, when examining States parties' reports and to explore the possibility of adopting a general recommendation on this theme as it relates, inter alia, to the provisions of article 14 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, with a view to clarifying the obligations of States parties to the Convention in this respect;

        10.           Invites to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to undertake a thorough discussion of the critical issue of the relationship between women's rights to land and property and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and to include the results of this discussion in its general comment on women.

29th meeting

21 August 1998

[Adopted without a vote.  See chap. VII.]