CEDAW Thematic Briefing: Rural Women and Land Ensuring women’s access to, and control over, and use of land and other productive resources, is fundamental to improving women’s lives and to ensuring gender equality.  Yet, gender inequalities in land rights are pervasive.  Not only do women have lower access to land than men.  They are often also restricted to so-called secondary land rights, meaning that they hold these rights through male family members.

The CEDAW Committee’s upcoming General Recommendation on the rights of rural women presents an important opportunity for raising and addressing these issues and developing a  framework that expands the interpretation of state obligation that ensures the elimination of discrimination and promotes substantive equality of rural women, particularly in the context of right to land and access to other productive resources.

Speakers:

• Ruth Aura Federation of Women Lawyers – Kenya (FIDA-Kenya)

• Ayesha Sen Choudhury International Women’s Rights Action Watch - Asia & Pacific (IWRAW-AP)

• Elena Garrido Romero UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights

• Mayra Gómez The Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

• Rowshan Moni Association for Land Reform and. Development (ALRD), Bangladesh

**Wednesday, 20 February 2013** 6:30pm Hotel President Wilson Room: Apollon

Geneva, Switzerland