Of 18 countries where men bar wives from working

A survey by the World Bank has lifted the lid off the existing economic gender inequalities across the globe.

The 2022 survey on sex discrimination in economic status laws shows that 18 countries allow men to prevent their wives from working. Another 42 countries, the survey indicates, have laws that prevent daughters from inheriting the same proportion of assets as sons.

The Women, Business and the Law 2022 report on 190 economies also shows another 43 countries do not grant widows the same inheritance rights as widowers, with a further 95 countries having no policy for equal pay for equal work for both men and women. A further 76 countries limit women’s property.

A policy brief by Equality Now titled Words & Deeds: Sex Discrimination in Marital Status Laws published in October 2022 also details some of the oppressive economic laws that continue to perpetuate inequalities.

Asset disposal

In Cameroon, the policy brief indicates the country’s civil code allows husbands to administer and dispose of his wife’s property, while in Chile, the law establishes the legal presumption that husbands head the household and control marital property, as well as property owned by their wives.

Things are not different in Sri Lanka, where Matrimonial Rights and Inheritance Ordinance restrict a married woman from disposing of and dealing with her own immovable property, such as land, without the written consent of her husband.

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Tunisia’s Personal Status Code also limits daughters’ inheritance rights and provides that any sons inherit twice as much as daughters. The United Arabs Emirates (UAE) Personal Affairs Law prescribes that males inherit twice as much as females where there are both male and female heirs.

Women have also not been spared in matters of employment in providing for the social security benefit Plans and other measures that have a lower compulsory retirement age for women as opposed to men.

Women in Cameroon may not engage in the trade of their choice as a section of the country’s law provides that a husband may object to his wife’s exercise of a trade that is different from him in the interest of their marriage or children.

China’s Labour Act automatically bars all women from engaging in mining and other forms of intense physical labour.

In Madagascar, women are prohibited from working at night as its labour law forbids the employment of women in night work except in family establishments.

Equality campaign

Only 12 out of 190 economies surveyed by the World Bank in 2022 had achieved legal equality, with a typical economy only granting women 75 per cent of the same rights as men. As a result of this data, Equality Now is spearheading the Global Campaign for Equality in Family Law.

The campaign is calling for amendment or repeal of all discriminatory family laws to be a global priority and advocates equality for women, girls and other marginalised groups under laws, policies and practices relating to families in all their diversity, regardless of religion and culture.

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The organisation notes the Beijing Platform for Action, agreed to by 189 UN member states in 1995, clearly lays out what all governments must do to ensure equality and non-discrimination under the law and promote women’s economic rights.

“The governments need to review national laws, including customary laws and legal practices in the areas of family, civil, penal, labour and commercial law. They need to revoke any remaining laws that discriminate on the basis of sex and remove gender bias in the administration of justice,” says Equality Now.

The UN predicts that if no action is taken now, it will take 286 years to end discrimination in the law.

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