Report - Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights

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Executive Summary
The Pacific Regional Consultation on Women’s Rights to Adequate Housing and Land (Fiji, 12 - 15 October
2004) is <strong>the</strong> fifth in a series <strong>of</strong> regional meetings 1 held in cooperation with <strong>the</strong> UN Special Rapporteur
on Right to Adequate Housing (SRAH), Mr. Miloon Kothari, in preparation for his reports on women
and adequate housing to <strong>the</strong> United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
The Commission on Human Rights received <strong>the</strong> Special Rapporteur’s preliminary report on women
and adequate housing in 2003. In its responding resolution 2 , <strong>the</strong> Commission affirmed that
discrimination against women in land, property and housing was a violation <strong>of</strong> human rights, and
encouraged governments to support <strong>the</strong> transformation <strong>of</strong> customs and traditions. The Commission
also requested <strong>the</strong> Special Rapporteur to submit a second report in 2005.
In preparation for his second report, <strong>the</strong> Special Rapporteur participated in a regional consultation
to identify <strong>the</strong> key housing and land issues for women in <strong>the</strong> Pacific region. The Pacific consultation
was organised jointly by <strong>the</strong> Fiji-based Regional Rights Resource Team (RRRT), Habitat International
Coalition – Housing and Land Rights Network (South Asia Regional Programme) (HIC-HLRN), <strong>the</strong>
Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) and <strong>the</strong> International Women’s Rights
and Action Watch – Asia Pacific (IWRAW-Asia Pacific). 21 representatives <strong>of</strong> women’s and community
groups from Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Kiribati, Cook Islands, Bougainville, Papua New
Guinea and Australia participated. 5 resource persons from Australia, India, Egypt and Fiji facilitated
<strong>the</strong> consultations. (See Annex A for a complete list <strong>of</strong> participants and resource persons)
As land and housing rights are intimately connected within Pacific cultures and societies, <strong>the</strong>se
consultations had a specific focus on <strong>the</strong> linkages between land, housing and inheritance rights <strong>of</strong>
women, particularly in <strong>the</strong> contexts <strong>of</strong> traditional and customary norms, violence, urbanisation and
migration.
The objectives <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> consultation were:
• To examine <strong>the</strong> contexts and obstacles for women’s rights to land and adequate housing in order
to promote substantive equality for women and <strong>the</strong>reby inform <strong>the</strong> normative content <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> human
right to adequate housing;
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O<strong>the</strong>r regional consultations have been held in East Africa, Asia, Latin America and <strong>the</strong> Middle East/North
Africa (2002-2004).
2
Resolution 2003/22 ‘Women’s equal ownership <strong>of</strong>, access to and control over land and <strong>the</strong> equal rights to own
property and to adequate housing’.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1