Women and their children living in a favela, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Women living in the slums of Mumbai, India |
Women's Housing Rights Under International Human Rights Law
Looking at key housing rights standards and principles
Human rights apply to everyone, everywhere, regardless of gender. The right to adequate housing is established in many international human rights instruments and yet it remains far from being realised for most of the world’s poor. Women, due to ongoing gender disparity, have suffered disproportionately from violations of the right to adequate housing.
It has indeed been very positive that recent years have seen even more major advancements in the protection of women’s housing rights at national, regional and international levels. At the international level, the landscape for women’s housing rights has expanded, ushering in a new era of progress for women’s rights advocates and deepening our understandings of the indivisibility of all women’s human rights.
All aspects of women’s housing rights touch upon the themes of a woman’s rights to non-discrimination and equality. Indeed, the very ideas of non-discrimination and equality are cornerstone human right principles which themselves have enjoyed rich development. International human rights law has repeatedly set forth the overarching right to non-discrimination, a principle which applies to all aspects of housing, land and property. Nevertheless, there is a stark gap between the law and the reality for women. Gender discrimination in relation to housing security continues to characterise the daily reality of women in all corners of the world.
In 1996, the international community acknowledged gender equality in housing rights during the second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II). At the Habitat II conference States pledged, inter alia, to remedy gender discrimination related to housing; to provide “legal security of tenure and equal access to land to all people, including women and those living in poverty,” and to “undertak[e] legislative and administrative reforms to give women full and equal access to economic resources, including the right to inheritance and to ownership of land and other property,” and to eliminate gender bias in access to housing.
Various international legal resources exist which protect women’s housing rights. Links are provided below.
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