A/HRC/19/53 11. The e-consultation highlighted a host of issues which continue to impact the ability of women to enjoy their right to adequate housing or which otherwise have a disproportionate gender impact. In all regions, patriarchy and gender discrimination; poverty; and the impact of globalization, neo-liberal economic policies and privatization surfaced as overarching issues of concern which set the stage for violations of women‘s right to adequate housing. More specifically, the impact of natural and human-induced disasters, conflict and internal displacement, war and occupation, lack of affordable and low-cost housing, forced evictions, homelessness, domestic violence, lack of women‘s participation in law and policy-making, lack of access to remedies, inadequate and discriminatory laws, and the application of discriminatory customary law, all emerged as relevant barriers to women‘s right to adequate housing across regions. 12. Concerns also emerged which were more regionally specific. In Africa, urbanization, climate change, low levels of financial literacy amongst women, and the rising number of female headed households all emerged as key issues affecting the status of women‘s right to adequate housing in the African continent today. In Asia, as well as in Africa, the consultation revealed how women are negatively affected by the impact of the agrarian crisis, as well as by ―land grabbing‖,6 further limiting women‘s already precarious access to, and control over, land and other natural resources. The e-consultation in Eastern and Central Europe highlighted the importance of recognizing intersectional discrimination as it affects certain groups of women, in particular vis-à-vis the segregation of Roma communities. In the Middle East and North Africa, lack of law enforcement; conflict and occupation; and discrimination against minorities all negatively impact women‘s right to adequate housing. In Western Europe and North America, key issues highlighted included inadequate supply of public housing and lack of government assistance for housing; lack of affordable housing; domestic violence; and discrimination against women on public assistance, women with disabilities, and women belonging to racial/ethnic minorities, including Indigenous women. And in Latin America, where the e-consultation highlighted many of the issues already mentioned – including discrimination in matters related to housing against indigenous and Afro-descendant women, lack of access to justice, and domestic violence – participants also highlighted the need for better statistical information related to women and housing, as well as the urgent need to close the implementation gap between policy and practice. 13. In addition the global financial crisis emerged as a key cross-cutting theme during the e-consultation. Within this context, cuts to public housing programmes are having a devastating impact for women in many countries across the world. For example, in 2011, the United States cut US$2.8 billion from its federal housing programmes. 7 These cuts to public housing programmes have hit women, and in particular ethnic minority women, women single heads of households, and women with disabilities, the hardest.8 14. The foreclosure crisis also has specific gender implications. Again, in the United States alone, researchers estimate that there were 2.5 million foreclosures from 2007 to 6 7 8 Land grabbing can be defined as the action of ―taking possession of and/or controlling a scale of land for commercial/industrial agricultural production which is disproportionate in size in comparison to the average land holding in the region‖, FIAN, Land Grabbing in Kenya and Mozambique (April 2010), p. 8, available at: http://www.fian.at/assets/StudieLandgrabbinginKeniaMozambiqueFIAN2010.pdf See Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011. See, inter alia, A/HRC/13/20/Add.4, para. 64. 5