Women and the Right to Adequate Housing

An Introduction to Central Issues

Habitat International Coalition (HIC) General Secretariat, September 2007

Women and the Right to Adequate Housing

An Introduction to Central Issues

Habitat International Coalition (HIC)

General Secretariat

Anna Kaijser

1

Women and the Right to Adequate Housing

An Introduction to Central Issues

Habitat International Coalition (HIC) General Secretariat, September 2007

Table of Contents

1.Introduction......

2.Background......

Legal framework......

The Special Rapporteur and the Regional Consultations......

3.Cross-cutting issues......

Structural discrimination......

Women’s rights to adequate housing and land in a legal context......

Intersectionality/multiple discrimination......

Gender-based violence......

Globalisation and economic liberalisation......

Forced evictions......

Environmental destruction and disasters......

Urbanisation and migration......

Armed/ethnic conflicts......

Knowledge and understanding of contexts......

4.Suggestions for strategies to improve housing and land rights for women

Bibliography......

ANNEX A:Regional Consultations 2002-2006...... ,

List of host organisations and participating organisations......

1.Introduction

This paper is a preliminary outline of themes for the agenda for the forum for Women and Housing that is to be held in Barcelona in February 2008. It is primarily based on the reports of Mr Miloon Kothari, the UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, and on the Regional Consultations for Women and Housing Rights carried out between 2002 and 2006.

Despite wide recognition of the right to adequate housing (RAH) as a central human right in national and international legislation, millions of people in all parts of the world are facing violations of their housing and land rights. These violations tend to affect women and men in different ways, and women’s housing and land rights are realised in differing ways, given the prevailing gender roles and the general power imbalance between the sexes and between different groups in all spheres of human society. Women, especially women belonging to minority groups, are vulnerable to housing rights violations due to tradition, lack of awareness of rights, discriminatory local or national legislation and practices and gender-insensitive implementation of laws. When working to enforce housing rights, it is therefore crucial to apply a gender perspective, taking into account the legal, social, cultural end economic patterns behind the differences in access to housing and land rights. This, in turn, requires more knowledge about the situation of women in various regions and communities. A more comprehensive understanding of the issues at stake in specific contexts will enable more relevant and successful interventions to enhance the equal enjoyment of the rights to adequate housing and access to land and other resources by all people, regardless of gender, class, religion, nationality, sexual orientation or any other factor.

Between 2002 and 2006, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing (SRAH) took the initiative to organise a number of consultations aiming to gain understanding about women’s rights and the right to adequate housing and land in different parts of the world. This paper includes a short introduction to the legal framework of the rights to adequate housing, the role of the SRAH and a presentation of the ideas behind the consultations, as well as a summary of the main issues that were brought up during them and a list of suggested strategies to improve women’s enjoyment of housing and land rights.

2.Background

Legal framework

The right to adequate housing is defined by the UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing as “the right of every woman, man, youth and child to gain and sustain a secure home and community in which to live in peace and dignity”. The equal rights to adequate housing are widely acknowledged in national and international legislation, and have gained recognition during the last decades. They are stated in a number of UN documents, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR, 1948), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR, 1966) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW, 1979), as well as declarations and recommendations such as the Beijing Platform for Action (1995) and the Habitat Agenda (1996). The concept of adequate housing is broad, including more components than only shelter. In 1991 the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) identified seven essential elements of the right to adequate housing:[1]

  • Legal security of tenure (through owning or renting, individually or collectively)
  • Accessibility to services, materials, facilities and infrastructure (including e.g. roads, education, land, water and healthcare)
  • Affordability (the expenses for housing should not cause deprivation of other rights)
  • Habitability (varies according to the local environment)
  • Accessibility (refers to physical accessibility)
  • Location (not too far from civil services and livelihood)
  • Cultural adequacy (accordance to cultural needs of the specific group)

This means that the rights to access to land, natural resources, livelihood and basic services are included in the rights to adequate housing, as well as e.g. the right not to be evicted and the right of the elderly, sick or disabled to a home adapted to their special needs. The RAH is all-encompassing, guaranteeing the same rights for every individual regardless of sex, nationality, ethnicity, age, health status or any other factor. However, the rights of women not to be discriminated against when it comes to e.g. property rights, inheritance practice, participation in decision-making and access to basic services are especially mentioned for example in the CEDAW. All states that have ratified the UN conventions are obliged to respect, protect and fulfil the rights to adequate housing for their inhabitants, without discrimination. Where states lack the resources to do this, they should seek support through international aid. No national or international policies may impede the realisation of equal rights to adequate housing.

The Special Rapporteur and the Regional Consultations

In 2000, the UN Commission on Human Rights appointed Mr Miloon Kothari to the post as Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing (SRAH), to focus on adequate housing as a component of the human rights and increase the knowledge about the status of housing and land rights internationally. His mandate includes researching issues regarding adequate housing world-wide, as well as keeping a dialogue with governments, international organisations and financial institutions, relevant UN bodies and civil society on issues within the field of housing rights, and reporting his findings to the Commission. Since his appointment as SRAH, Mr Kothari has focused on various issues within his field, including gender dimensions of housing and land rights. Three of his reports to the UN Commission of Human Rights, submitted in 2003, 2005 and 2006, are dedicated to women’s right to adequate housing and land. These reports concern issues including the indivisibility of all human rights and the interrelatedness of the right to adequate housing with other rights, the de jure and de facto status of women’s access to adequate housing and how to improve women’s enjoyment of equal housing and land rights.

Between 2002 and 2006, the SRAH, together with local and international civil society organisations, organised a series of seven regional consultations[2], bringing together representatives from women’s rights and housing and land rights groups in the respective geographic areas.[3] Before these consultations, a questionnaire was sent out to states, local authorities and civil society to collect information about the situation of women and housing in different countries. The questionnaire was structured so that it can also be used as a tool for monitoring governments’ progress in realising women’s and housing rights. During the consultations, the participants received information on the legal framework for women’s rights and the rights to adequate housing within the UN conventions and training on the Habitat International Coalition Housing and Land Right Network (HIC-HLRN) Tool Kit for monitoring and advocating. Thereafter, the participating individuals and organisations provided testimonies about the situation in their specific countries, putting women’s housing and land rights into context and highlighting its links to other issues. The testimonies served as first-hand information for a report that the SRAH presented to the Commission on Human Rights. The consultations also functioned as a forum for groups and individuals to meet and share ideas and experiences, bringing together women’s rights with the right to adequate housing. Furthermore, they worked as a link between the UN and civil society, in an effort to bridge the gap between the UN bodies and activists on the grassroots level.

3.Cross-cutting issues

Although women’s equal rights to adequate housing and to access and own land and other resources is widely recognised in national and international law, women all over the world – in high-income as well as low-income countries – still experience violations of these rights. Drawing from the Consultations on Women and Housing, and from the reports of the SRAH, a number of issues can be identified that seem to be of general importance in the international field of women and housing. The following list of issues, while not intended to be complete, summarises some of the key concerns on women and housing. Following the list of issues are suggestions for possible strategies to improve the housing and land rights situation with a gender perspective in mind. These suggested strategies are partly derived from the Consultation reports and from the SRAH:s reports on women and adequate housing.

Noting a widespread tendency to portray women as victims of processes outside of their command, this paper importantly does not intend to add to that picture or to indicate that women are always vulnerable and dependent, without agency of their own. However, the paper highlights known factors that increase the risks for violations of women’s rights to adequate housing and land, and pose barriers to the full realisation of these rights, and consequently demonstrates the need for the right to adequate housing and land to be addressed from a gender perspective.

Structural discrimination

Women as a group are, in general, more vulnerable to violations of their rights to adequate housing and land than men as a group.This originates from a structural subordination of women due to pre-formed assumptions about gender roles and social, economic and cultural arrangements prevailing in all regions covered by the consultations. This gendered power imbalance manifests itself differently in different places, in legal frameworks as well as through religious, traditional and customary practices. Its consequences include women’s greater (unpaid) responsibilityfor the household and role in caring for the family, and their comparatively lower access to education, employment and resources. All of this increases women’s dependency on men and therefore also their vulnerability to violations of their rights, including their rights to housing and land. Women’s relatively lower participation in decision-making bodies all over the world is a result of structural discrimination, while it simultaneously reinforces gender imbalances since women are less involved in the creation and implementation of laws and policies. Discrimination against women also intersects with other structures of discrimination, as will be explained below.

Women’s rights to adequate housing and land in a legal context

Some of the countries represented in the consultations have laws that discriminate against women regarding ownership, land titling, access to credit and inheritance. In most of the countries, however, men and women have equal legal rights, through either national laws or ratified UN conventions. The problem is, in many cases, not the laws themselves, but their implementation. Gender-neutral legislation may not be sufficient for fulfilling women’s rights if structural gender discrimination effects the interpretation and implementation of the laws – for example through the practice of property being registered only in the husband’s name, preventing women from having homeownership and equal inheritance rights; or where women’s lower income and capital levels impede their ability to access credit necessary to purchase homes and land. In order to change unequal patterns, gender sensitive implementation of the laws, with special recognition to women’s general subordination, is required. Poor law enforcement can also be related to other factors, such as the lack of awareness about women’s and housing/land rights among both women and men, the dominance of local, religious, cultural or traditional laws that may discriminate against women, the social pressure on women by the society or community not to report violations or inequalities, patriarchal attitudes or abusive actions by representatives of authorities and, subsequently, low trust in these authorities. Prevailing gender roles often limit women’s access to courts, especially when they are paired with other types of discrimination such as low education, marginalisation and poverty, or discriminatory religious or cultural practices.

Intersectionality/multiple discrimination

Gender is not the only motive for discrimination, and not all women are discriminated in the same ways. The concept of intersectionality is used to demonstrate how relations and identities such as ethnicity, age, marital status, class, caste, health status and sexual orientation interact in creating patterns of power in different contexts. Some specific issues that were highlighted during the consultations and that require specific attention include discrimination faced by lesbian, bisexual and transgender women, women with disabilities, single mothers, poor women, indigenous women, tribal/nomadic traveller women and women living with HIV/AIDS.This multiple discrimination affects women’s housing and land rights. For example, a woman may not be allowed to own property, due to patriarchal practices in her own community, while simultaneously being forced to live in informal settlements with inadequate access to basic services due to discrimination against her class or ethnic group in the wider society. Women can, therefore, not be regarded as a homogenous collective; conflicts of interests, power inequalities and discrimination exist also among them. Hence, women can be both victims and perpetrators of discrimination. It is important to take an intersectional approach, recognising overlapping power structures and causes for discrimination and vulnerability, in order to build a more comprehensive understanding of the complex problems, thereby hopefully enabling more relevant interventions. This approach may also be useful for detecting common interests and creating solidarity among different groups.

Gender-based violence

Physical, sexual or psychological violence against women in the family, in the community or by authorities is one of the most prevalent topics throughout the consultations. Domestic violence, extra-familial violence and sexual assault seem to be widespread problems in all of the regions, originating in unequal gender power structures, patriarchal traditions and social problems due to poverty and marginalisation. Certain groups of women face increased risks of violence. These groups include lesbian, bisexual and transgender women and women infected by HIV/AIDS. The gender-based violence itself is an obstacle to equal housing and land rights. Women cannot be said to enjoy equal rights to adequate housing if they live in constant fear of violence in their homes and cities. Also silent or outspoken social acceptance of gender-based violence and impunity of the ones responsible for it impede equal rights to a safe home, since the threat of violence is always present, obstructing women from claiming their rights. A tendency in the community and among authorities of not wanting to interfere in “private” matters within the family further augments the problem of especially domestic violence. Simultaneously, inadequate housing makes women more vulnerable to violence, since it may create tensions within and outside the family and deprive women of their private spaces as well as increase the risks for authoritarian violence, for example in the case of forced evictions. Lack of available housing and cultural or financial difficulties in buying or renting their own place may force women to stay in violent marriages because they have no access to alternative housing should they leave their husbands.

Globalisation and economic liberalisation

Globalisation is a broad concept, referring to a variety of economic, cultural and demographic processes (for example the increased economic interdependence, privatisation, liberalisation and deregulation, the faster flow of capital, goods and people and extended cultural exchange), affecting all societies and individuals differently. Nevertheless, some of these processes have negative effects for certain groups of women and their right to adequate housing and land. For example, the increased dominance of multinational corporations on the global market in many cases makes it hard for small-scale farmers, pastoralists, forest communities,fishers etc to make a living. They are forced to leave their livelihoods and move to urban areas in search for employment and often end up in informal settlements and low-income areas, as will be further elaborated on below. Also increased international migration and human trafficking is partly a result of global economic processes. The world-wide trend of economic liberalisation has, furthermore, led to increased real estate speculation and privatisation of basic services, such as housing, education and healthcare, which has in many cases resulted in decreased affordability, especially for single women and female-headed households, whose incomes tend to be lower. When the state is not providing basic services, this responsibility is moved to the family and close community, most often adding to the tasks of the women.

Forced evictions

Forced eviction is defined as “the permanent or temporary removal against their will of individuals, families and/or communities from the homes and/or land [that] they occupy, without the provision of, and access to, appropriate forms of legal or other protection.”[4] Forced evictions are a violation against the right to adequate housing, but are nevertheless frequently carried out by governmental or private actors, displacing large numbers of individuals and families. The main reasons for the evictions include slum clearance, infrastructural or commercial constructions, development projects and privatisation of housing and land. Women, especially those facing additional discrimination due to e.g. ethnicity, class, disability or marital status, tend to be more vulnerable to evictions, through greater risks of being evicted, the likelihood of getting hurt or abused during and after the evictions and difficulties in finding alternative housing after the displacement. Homelessness is a common hindrance to women’s enjoyment of their rights to adequate housing, exposing women to serious security threats. Furthermore, forced evictions enhance the processes of urbanisation and migration, as will be elaborated on below.