WUNRN
UN SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON EXTREME POVERTY REPORT TO UN
HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL 2015
Gender-Based Discrimination and Economic Inequalities
To access FULL 20-Page Special Rapporteur Report, go to http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/RegularSessions/Session29/Pages/ListReports.aspx.
Scroll down to A/HRC/29/31 and click on language translation of choice.
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United Nations |
A/HRC/29/31 |
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General
Assembly |
Distr.: General 27 May 2015 Original: English |
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Human Rights Council
Twenty-ninth
session
Promotion
and protection of all human rights, civil,
political, economic, social and cultural rights,
including the right to development
Report of the
Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston*
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Summary |
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In the present report, the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human
rights focuses on the relationship between extreme poverty and extreme
inequality and argues that a human rights framework is critical in addressing
extreme inequality.
In the report, the Special Rapporteur provides an overview of the widening
economic and social inequalities around the world; illustrates how such
inequalities stifle equal opportunity, lead to laws, regulations and
institutions that favour the powerful, and perpetuate discrimination against
certain groups, such as women; and further discusses the negative effects of
economic inequalities on a range of civil, political, economic, social and
cultural rights.
The Special Rapporteur also analyses the response of the international
community, including the United Nations, the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund, to the challenge of extreme inequality, finding that human
rights are absent in the inequality debate and little has been done to follow
up on any of the studies or recommendations emerging from the United Nations
human rights system.
To conclude, the Special Rapporteur proposes an agenda for the future for tackling inequality,
including: committing to reduce extreme inequality; giving economic, social
and cultural rights the same prominence and priority as are given to civil
and political rights; recognizing the right to social protection;
implementing fiscal policies specifically aimed at reducing inequality;
revitalizing and giving substance to the right to equality; and putting
questions of resource redistribution at the centre of human rights debates. |
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25.
Although many forms of discrimination are inherently unjust, the correlation
between gender-based discrimination and economic inequalities deserves special
mention since it potentially affects half of the world’s population. While both
men and women may experience myriad inequalities, based on factors such as
their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or disability, gender-based discrimination
is too often seen to be almost exclusively a women’s problem. In its World
Development Report 2012, the World Bank describes the forms of
discrimination that still exist in many countries and that directly affect
economic inequality between men and women. According to the World Bank, men and
women still have different ownership rights in at least nine countries, and in
many countries, women and girls still have fewer inheritance rights than men
and boys.[1] In addition, women continue to fare badly in
the labour market generally. A stocktaking by the United Nations Entity for
Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women) shows that almost 80
countries maintain restrictions on the types of work that women are permitted
to undertake. Also according to UN-Women, at the global level, women’s labour
force participation rates have stagnated since the 1990s. Currently, only half
of women are in the labour force compared to more than three quarters of men.
Despite considerable regional variations, nowhere has this gender gap been
eliminated: globally, women earn on average 24 per cent less than men. In one
study of four countries, lifetime income gaps between women and men were
estimated to be between 31 and 75 per cent.[2]