Insecure land rights for women threaten progress on gender equality and sustainable development

Driven by the urgency of a global rush for land and extracted resources and unprecedented urbanization, hastened by the growing impact of climate change and frequency of natural disasters, women have been at the center of human rights violations worldwide regarding their rights and access to land.    From large-scale land acquisitions that displace communities without due compensation, to the encroachment of extractive industries on indigenous and communal lands, to the unplanned urbanization that forcibly evicts people living in informal settlements, to the impacts of climate change and natural disasters on land use and productivity, to land and property deprivation by kin or State, women are more harshly affected by land tenure insecurity due to direct and indirect discriminatory laws and practices at the national, community and family level.   In this context, States should more than ever comply with their obligation to ensure that women have equal rights, including in access to land in law and practice.  This would imply the adoption of measures to prevent private corporations and investors, powerful local elites, multilateral organizations, regional trade initiatives and family members from discriminating women in their rights to access, use, inherit, control, and own land.