A/HRC/19/53 I. Introduction 1. The present report is submitted in accordance with Human Rights Council resolution 15/8, and constitutes the third annual report submitted to the Council since the current Special Rapporteur, Raquel Rolnik, assumed her functions on 1 April 2008. It focuses on the question of women and their right to adequate housing. For women across the world, the right to adequate housing is as yet unrealized. The status of women‘s right to adequate housing is central not only to understanding the female face of poverty worldwide, but also to understanding the dynamics of gender inequality itself, both within and outside the home. 2. The recognition and realization of every woman‘s right to adequate housing is necessary to ensuring that every woman is able to live a life with dignity. For millions of women, it is the home which is the centre of daily life, and, in many cultures, it is women who spend the most time at home. For women in particular, the status of their right to adequate housing is intimately connected to their security, health, livelihood and overall well-being. 3. However, adequate housing for women goes far beyond addressing basic material needs. Because of the close connection that exists between the right to adequate housing and the right to equality, adequate housing for women goes to the heart of social inequality and discrimination. When a woman is unable to access adequate housing and land mainly because she is a woman, she is not only affected in terms of her immediate material needs, she is also relegated to a subordinate and dependent position within society because of her gender. Ensuring that women have access to and control over, vital resources such as housing and land is essential to challenging and changing gender power structures and patterns of gender inequality which continue to oppress, exclude and relegate women to the margins. 4. Finally, while it is true that women and the home are still in many places closely connected for social and cultural reasons, to insist that a woman‘s right to adequate housing is upheld should not reinforce the old (and discriminatory) adage that ―a woman‘s place is in the home‖. Rather, securing women‘s right to adequate housing ultimately ensures greater autonomy for women in all areas of their lives, and not less. Advocating on behalf of women‘s right to adequate housing is not about confining women to certain gender roles. Instead, it is about acknowledging that gender as a social construct fundamentally impacts the ways in which women and men experience their housing situations, and that in order for women to enjoy adequate housing on the basis of equality their needs must be understood and made visible within the framework of the right to adequate housing. II. Women and the right to adequate housing: past and present 5. The focus on women and the right to adequate housing is not a new topic for the mandate of the Special Rapporteur. Indeed, significant work on women‘s right to adequate housing was done under the mandate of the Special Rapporteur between 2002 and 2006. The 2006 report on women and the right to adequate housing of the then Special Rapporteur offered the main findings stemming from an important body of thematic research, country missions, regional civil society consultations and information received from Governments and other actors on the status and implementation of this right. 1 1 E/CN.4/2006/118. 3