Women, Law, and Land at the Local Level: Claiming Women's Human Rights in Domestic Legal Systems

Abstract

The recognition of womens human rights in the development context is a new approach to an old issue. The events of the International Decade for Women (1975-1985) clearly identified womens roles in their economies at least among women who worked in development. Governments were exhorted to adopt policies in every area from education to political life that would help women participate more fully in their countries development and would allow them to benefit from economic improvements. But womens economic and political status have improved only marginally if at all in the years since the end of the Decade. In many countries women have actually become poorer; almost everywhere they still suffer from exclusion at best and violence at worst. It is time to move forward again and use political and legal systems to establish womens rightful places in the economic and political lives of their countries. (excerpt)