Source: Sudan Vision
Some 100 million are homeless on any given day. Further millions are forcibly evicted or displaced from their homes every year. A gender analysis indicates that women are particularly affected and the present publication aims at shedding some light on the main underlying reasons for this situation.

Numerous human rights mechanisms have over the years drawn attention to the effects of gender inequality and discrimination on women's enjoyment of the right to adequate housing. In 2002, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, in its resolution 2002/49, tasked the first Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, Mr. Miloon Kothari (India), with reporting on women and adequate housing, and decided to keep the issue of women's equal ownership of, access to and control over land and the equal rights to own property and to adequate housing on its agenda. This publication distils his findings on women's rights, based on regional consultations with civil society between 2002 and 2006, country missions, testimonies and information from local grass-roots groups.
It also draws on the work done by the second Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, Ms. Raquel Rolnik (Brazil), appointed in 2008. In 2011, she initiated a web-based worldwide consultation on women and the right to adequate housing and in 2012 she presented the results in her 2012 report to the Human Rights Council. Her work on the impact of the financial crisis on the right to adequate housing and on climate change is also pertinent to an analysis of women and the right to adequate housing.

The work of other United Nations human rights mechanisms, such as the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, is also covered in this publication. For additional in-depth analysis of specific themes, the publication also draws from specially commissioned papers. The publication points out the conceptual links, the positive practices and the policy implications for States, United Nations agencies and bodies, and civil society.

In addition to highlighting national discriminatory laws, this publication illustrates how the gap between the protection of women's right to adequate housing is the current critical obstacle to the realization of their right to adequate housing worldwide. It emphasizes that in many countries women's rights are protected by law, but in practice women are socially and economically disadvantaged, and face de facto discrimination in housing, land and inheritance rights. One of the significant ways in which this obstacle manifests itself is in seemingly gender-neutral laws that are interpreted and implemented in ways that disadvantage and discriminate against women.

The specific vulnerabilities to violations of different groups of women, such as victims of domestic violence; widowed, divorced or separated women; female heads of households; victims of forced evictions; indigenous and tribal women; women with disabilities; women in conflict or post-conflict situations; migrant workers; women from descent- and work-based communities; domestic workers; women in prison; sex workers; and lesbian and transgender women, are another major obstacle to the realization of their right to adequate housing. Owing to a combination of factors, these women face different housing conditions and are more likely to become homeless or to live in inadequate housing.

Highlighting the violations related to housing that these different groups of vulnerable women face brings to the forefront the impact of multiple discrimination on them, as a result of their gender, race, caste, ethnicity, age and other factors, but in many cases, also as a result of their relative impoverishment and lack of access to social and economic resources.

There are examples of initiatives by women and women's groups around the world to address these general and specific issues, illustrating the strength and creativity of individual women and communities that have responded to violations of women's rights to adequate housing, land and inheritance. There are also many examples of projects undertaken by communities, sometimes in conjunction with States, to positively address the needs and violations of women's rights. Some are highlighted in this publication. Its aim is therefore twofold: to shed light on the main obstacles to women's full enjoyment of the right to adequate housing; and offer guidance about measures to prevent and eradicate discrimination, including violence, against women in housing rights.
In addition to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (art. 25), the most authoritative international recognition of the right to adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living is contained in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which states that States parties "[...] recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing".

The 1970s and 1980s saw the emergence in many countries of national campaigns, movements and struggles to identify housing as a human right. In India in the late 1980s and early 1990s, for example, hundreds of interviews and meetings were conducted in vernacular languages to collate information on what housing meant to people. What the campaign found was that for people a house is a place to belong, a secure place to live—it is much more than just four walls and a roof. Similar campaigns took place in Brazil, in several African countries and in the United Kingdom. The collective experiences were discussed in the context of the two United Nations Conferences on Human Settlements (1976 and 1996) and the Global Strategy for Shelter (1988-2000).

The right to adequate housing continues to be unmet in all regions of the world, particularly for vulnerable groups of women but also for certain groups of men, such as men from minority communities. In recent decades, the attention of international forums has been drawn to links between violence against women, including domestic violence, and the lack of enjoyment of the right to adequate housing. In her 2000 report on economic and social policy and its impact on violence against women, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences underlined that women's poverty, together with a lack of other housing options, made it difficult for women to leave violent family situations, and reaffirmed that forced relocation and forced eviction from home and land had a disproportionate impact on women, especially when these violations were committed by spouses or in-laws.

In 2009, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences said that "the impact of these forced evictions, often by militia or armed forces, is profoundly devastating for women and is correlated with heightened rates of physical, psychological and economic violence against women before, during and after the evictions. This is true both in terms of violence against women at the hands of State authorities, non-State actors, community members, as well as violence against women by their partners or relatives within the home."

UN Human Rights Office

The right to adequate housing is clearly recognized in international human rights law, including in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which provides for "the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions" .Yet, well over one billion people live in precarious conditions in slums and informal settlements threatening their health and even their survival. This publication provides an overview of the meaning, intent and implications of the human right to adequate housing, and illustrates obstacles to women worldwide enjoying this right effectively.