A/HRC/31/51 inheritance rather than heirs in their own right and additionally single women are prohibited from living independently. 26 3. Property ownership within marriage 26. When land is purchased during a marriage, women may lack equitable ownership. Societies with customary law often exclude joint ownership based on the belief that women are not capable of owning land. In market economies, when societal norms have recognized community property between spouses, joint ownership of property acquired during marriage is commonly accepted but patriarchal norms can still result in elusive recognition of gender-equal property rights. 4. State action 27. Between 1990 and 2010, many Latin American and sub-Saharan African countries engaged in land reform to establish formal laws that recognize and protect women’s rights to land. According to the 2015 UNWOMEN’s Progress of the World’s Women Report, “by 2014, 128 countries had laws that guarantee married women’s equality when it comes to property, and in 112 countries daughters had equal inheritance rights to sons”. 27 28. These are positive developments but unfortunately, formal laws have not sufficiently secured property rights of women, largely due to the prevalence of customary laws. In many African countries the existence of “dual legal systems” reflecting both customary laws and common law tends to complicate land ownership. 28 In Asia, many countries retain personal or religious law that prevails over formal laws in practice, which effectively prevent women from owning land. Additionally in many cases, formal laws and state institutions have limited reach beyond urban centers. 29. Formal laws could also prove ineffective if women do not realize or assume control over their rights. For example, in 2005, India amended the Hindu Succession Act (1956) to allow men and women equal inheritance to agricultural land. However, according to a 2013 study, challenges in the implementation of the Act had been observed, allegedly as a result of women not being aware of their legal rights and not wanting to upset their families and resistance from their brothers amongst other reasons. 29 30. State action can also be a source of discriminatory land distribution. A state may engage in land redistribution through various measures, including land reform, large scale appropriation, and privatization programs. At times, land distribution intended to benefit marginalized groups only benefits male heads of household. Recent land reform programs have tried to address this inequity by specifically allocating land to women, or acknowledging joint property rights. 30 However, many countries still come up short, even when gender equality is explicitly articulated as a policy objective in such programs. This 26 27 28 29 30 8 E. Mann and N. Luangkhot,, Lao-German Land Policy Development Project, (2008), pp. 14, 24, 47. World Bank 2015c. “Women, Business and the Law Database.” Accessed January 2015. Washington, DC: World Bank. This is not out of all the countries in the world, but out of 139 and 138 countries with available data respectively. World Bank 2015c. Nia K. N. Jackson, All Players to the Table: Getting Total Buy-in to An Economic Approach to Women’s Land Rights Reform,10 J. Int’l Bus. & L. (2011), pp 189, 196-199. A. Sircar and S.PAL, Landesa “The Formal and Informal Barriers in the Implementation, of the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act 2005.” Paper prepared for presentation at the 2014 world bank conference on land and poverty, The World Bank – Washington DC, March 24-27, (2014) https://www.academia.edu/15882078/What_is_preventing_women_from_inheriting_land_A_Study_o f_implementation_of_Hindu_Succession_Act_in_three_states_of_India The World Bank, FAO, IFAD, Gender in Agriculture Sourcebook, pp. 137 – 138.