COHRE Women and Housing Rights Fact Sheet No.2 The Housing Rights of Girls

Girl children are particularly vulnerable to certain human rights violations, including housing rights violations

Because of their gender, girls also have to deal with specific hardships related to gender-based violence and discrimination

States have international legal obligations to ensure that all measures possible are taken to ensure that the right to adequate housing for girls is respected, protected and fulfilled

Women and Housing Rights THE HOUSING RIGHTS of Girls

Every girl deserve an environment that promotes her emotional, physical and psychological development and wellbeing. Nonetheless, girls often face unique difficulties due to gender-based discrimination and violence. This is true for girls who are orphaned, and who are disinherited of family property; girls who live in inadequate housing; girls who are forcibly evicted; girls who live and work on the street; and girls who become displaced due to disaster or conflict.

Article 27 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child ensures girl children the right to adequate housing, without discrimination. Inadequately housed girl children in slums and informal settlements face unique problems, many of which are related to issues of lack of privacy and exposure to gender-based violence, including sexual violence. Girls in such communities often live in constant fear of physical abuse and sexual violence, at times leaving them exposed to sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV/AIDS. Girl children living on the streets also face alarmingly high rates of sexual exploitation and abuse, which leaves them psychologically traumatised and exposes them to sexually transmitted disease and unwanted pregnancy.

The right to inherit is also extremely crucial for girls, particularly in cultures that reserve inheritance for boys. The same rationale used to deprive widows of their

inheritance rights is used to deny girls of theirs. Many cultures justify depriving girls of their right to inherit property because they reason that once a girl gets married she joins her husband’s family and any property she owns passes on to his family. Moreover, girls are deprived of their inheritance rights because once they wed, their husbands are deemed to be the breadwinners for the family and thus custodian of the family’s wealth.

In the context of HIV/AIDS, girl children are especially disadvantaged.

Gender-based discrimination results in a rigid division of labour, with girls doing far more work in and around the house than their brothers, and far more likely to have to care for terminally ill family members. Girls whose parents die as a result of HIV/AIDS are especially vulnerable to property-grabbing by family members, as well as sexual exploitation. Girls are often denied their right to inherit property on equal terms with male siblings.

In most parts of the world, girls and boys are reared to perform stereotyped roles. Girls have unequal access to education, often as a result of being overburdened with domestic responsibilities related to inadequate housing and living conditions. In addition, in developing countries where families often lack the financial resources to educate all of their children, the trend is to allow boys to obtain an education while the girls remain at home preparing for their future roles as wives and mothers. Girls’ inability to obtain an education or receive job training during their childhood and young adulthood also diminishes their future potential to obtain adequate housing on their own. In the long run, the ability of adult women to independently secure their housing rights is significantly impacted by their access to education and other life opportunities as girls.

The COHRE Women and Housing Rights Programme would like to thank Tess Moren for her assistance in the preparation of this fact-sheet

For girls, realising the right to adequate housing includes providing for their safety and freedom from gender-based violence. The ‘best interests of the child’ principle must take account of the realities that children face with respect to discrimination, including discrimination faced by girls on account of their gender.

While forced evictions are detrimental to all their victims, they too have especially serious implications for girls. It is well documented that girls and women suffer disproportionately when they are forcibly evicted. Girls and their families residing in informal settlements risk eviction. The international community

has reaffirmed that the practice of forced eviction constitutes a gross violation of a broad range of human rights, and in particular of the right to adequate housing. In response to the violence, panic and confusion that are typical of forced eviction, many children experience recurring nightmares, anxiety and distrust. Children also note increased violence within their own homes after a forced eviction had taken place. Thus, forced evictions are not only a focal point for violence, they also breed violence in the lives of children and their families.

In order to best ensure the housing rights of girls, States should integrate a national strategy on children’s housing rights into their National Plans of Action on Children and other domestic legislation. Girls should be enabled to participate effectively in the creation of this strategy, so that it may adequately reflect their needs, interests and their right to equality. Girls should also be protected from forced eviction, and they and their families should be provided with security of tenure.