Legal context and categories

• Author: Deniz Devrim - Roland Blomeyer - Paul Dalton - Senni Mut-Tracy
• Pages: 15-20

Discriminatory Laws Undermining Women’s Rights

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violence and discrimination are promoted through advocacy at all levels of government, technical

assistance and capacity building, and active participation by women.

In 2019, UN Women, the African Union, the Commonwealth, the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the

Organis ation Internationale de la Francophonie, and the Secr etaría General Ibero-Americana launched a

joint strategy: “Equalit y in law for women an d girls by 203 0: A mult i-stakeholder strategy for accelerated

action”. An ev aluation to be conducted in 2024 will serve as a basis of repor ting on lessons learned and

pro mising pract ices and will f eed int o var ious pro cesses such a s period ic reviews o f the B PfA, and the High-

level Politica l Fo rum for follow-up a nd rev iew of the 2030 A genda for Su stainable Development.

In March 2020, the international INGO Equality Now, together with UN Women and nine other

organisations from around the world, launched a Global Campaign for Equality in Family Law7. The

camp aign a ims t o help deliver full equa lity fo r women and girls by achieving legal equality in the home. It

will draw at tentio n to t he globa l impact o f discrimina tory fa mily laws co ncerned wit h marriage, divorce,

cust ody of child ren a nd ot her laws t hat a ffect f amily lif e.

At region al level, the Council of Europe’s Gender Equality Strat egy (2018-2023) is com mitted to addressing

discr iminatio n in law. The A frican Unio n’s cam paign to endin g child mar riage includes the adoption of a

General Comment and a Common Position; the appointment ofa SpecialRapporteur, andthe

compendium of the minimum age of marriage provisions and related exceptions. The E conomic

Community of West African States– in its 2015 Abid jan Declara tion on th e Eradication o f Statelessness –

commits m ember states to promoting gender-equal nati onality laws . In 2018, th e Le agu e of Ar ab S tates

endors ed a declaration with a call to all member states to enact reforms to uphold gender equal nationality

rights a nd to rem ove reservations t o Article 9 of CEDAW. In the Pacific region, the new Pacific Partnership

to End Violence Against Women and Girls brings together governments, CSOs, and communities to

pro mote eq uality in law f or women a nd girls by 2030. In Latin America and the Car ibbean, the Secretaría

Gener al Iber oamerica na is wor king withUN Women to address discriminatory laws and has explored

examples of reforms. Within the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie’s strategy adopted in

2018, governments ar e committed to review and modify laws, regu lations, p olicies and p ractices ofa

discriminatory nature or effect agains t women and girls. The G7 Gen der E qualit y Adv isor y Cou ncil’s 2 019

report calls on governments to guarantee financing to both eliminate dis criminatory laws and implement

progres sive legislative frameworks.

2Legal context and categories

Laws can discriminate directly or indirectly. Direct discrimination refers to laws that are explicitly

discriminatoryagainst a particulargroupofpeople; th at is, the d iscriminato ry aspect is clear fro m the words

of the provision or p rovisions in question. Indirect discr imination occu rs where laws are for mally neutral

but in practice have a disproportionately negative impact on a particular group. Ins tances of indirectly

discriminatory laws are often not identified until after a law has been adopted and the discriminatory

nature of a particular provision becomes apparent in implementation.

For th e purposes of this st udy, we have chosen to focus on the following five legal subject areas :

(i) Laws related to t he enjoyment of civil and polit ical right s;

(ii) Laws r egula ting access to em ployment , economic opport unities a nd finan cial res ources ;

7Campaign supported by Equality Now, UN Women, Musawah, Act Church of Sweden, Femnet, Muslim for Progressive Values,

Solidarity for African Women’s Rights, Women’s Learning Partnership and CLADEM. Launch event online at:

https://www.equalitynow.org/global_campaign_for_equality_in_family_law_webinar