2nd March 2020
While legal discrimination exists in many forms, there are four broad categories of legal discrimination, each including laws related to:
- Marital Status – Sex discrimination in marital status laws renders women and girls subordinate in many aspects of family relations before, during, and after marriage
- Personal Status – Sex discrimination in personal status laws negatively impacts the ability of women to conduct various aspects of their daily lives.
- Economic Status – Sex discrimination in economic status laws restricts women from being economically independent, limiting access to inheritance and property ownership as well as employment opportunities, thereby reinforcing gender stereotypes and roles.
- Violence – Sex discrimination in laws purporting to address violence, or silence on the issue within the law, can actually promote or perpetuate violence against women and girls because there is little to deter perpetrators from committing crimes or inadequate recourse for victims; intimate partner and sexual violence is disproportionately inflicted upon women and adolescent girls.
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