South Sudanese women wait in the line to vote during the referendum in Juba, South Sudan. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic

As the first post in the She Succeeds blog series outlined, girls’ and women’s empowerment is imperative to achieving global goals of hunger and poverty alleviation, economic growth, and socio-political stability. But how are girls and women empowered, and what holds them back from their full potential? One major impediment to girls’ and women’s empowerment are legal barriers—and accompanying social norms—that limit their economic, political, and cultural participation. To empower girls and women, these barriers must be broken down, worldwide—and for good.

Can I See Your ID? Legal Identification for Girls and Women

While those of us in high-income countries might take our legal identification for granted, there are 1.5 billion people worldwide who do not have any government-issued proof of their legal identity—the vast majority of whom are women and girls in Africa and Asia. This lack of identification usually stems from birth, with many people unable to obtain a birth certificate or any form of legal registration for their newborns. Social exclusion of minority groups can inhibit registration, as can the profound logistical barriers of poverty or geographic isolation that can make legally registering births difficult. Without birth registration, securing an ID later in life is challenging, especially for women: some countries enforce legal restrictions on married women’s (but not men’s) ability to obtain an ID.

When a woman lacks a legal ID, it becomes infinitely more difficult—or impossible—for her to access public and private services. Financial services, social assistance programs, education, health services, employment opportunities, and voter registration are out of reach. A lack of registration also renders these women invisible within census data and for policymakers.

A Plot of One’s Own: Increasing Women’s Land Tenure

Land is the most important household asset for those who depend on agriculture for their livelihood. But while women make up nearly half of the world’s agricultural labor force, they are consistently less likely to own land, or even have access to rented land. Sub-Saharan African women, for example, make up nearly 50 percent of agricultural labor, but only 15 percent of the total agricultural land holders overall. This figure dips even lower depending on the country: in Mali, women comprise only 5 percent of land holders. Even when women do own land, it tends to be smaller or of poorer quality than that of men: in Ethiopia women’s land is 43 percent smaller, on average, than the size of land owned by men.

The barriers to women’s land tenure are both legal and cultural, making reform difficult: in many countries, women still lack equal rights to property ownership. Daughters are often less likely than sons to inherit their family’s land, and in many countries widows lack equal inheritance rights to their husband’s land. But even with legal reforms, in over 90 countries social customs inhibit women’s access to land.

Women’s land tenure is a powerful tool for empowerment: when women own their own land, they have increased participation in household decision-making and improved access to credit. Their own food security, health, and nutritional status tends to improve, as does that of their family members, and their children see education gains. These benefits extend beyond the household level—countries with greater landless populations are more likely to experience conflict. Women who own their land are also more likely to devote their time to soil and water conservation, mitigating key natural resource pressures.

When Girls Don’t Get to Be Children: Eliminating Child Marriage and Child Labor

Girls’ empowerment depends first and foremost on their ability to fully experience childhood and adolescence. But far too often girls prematurely find themselves in adult situations due to practices like child marriage and child labor.

Every year, 15 million girls around the world are married before they turn 18—and rural girls are more likely to marry early than their urban counterparts. Sadly, girls in the most vulnerable situations are the most likely to marry early: girls in the poorest 20 percent of the global population are most likely to marry, as well as girls in fragile states.

Child marriage has a profoundly detrimental effect on a girl’s health and well-being, and her opportunities when she reaches adulthood. Child marriage typically means a girl’s formal education is over—she must drop out of school to become a bride. She is more likely to experience domestic abuse, and believe that such abuse is “justified.” When girls under 20 give birth, they are 50 percent likely to have a child who is stillborn or dies in the first weeks of life, and also face a higher risk of death in childbirth as well as a higher risk of contracting HIV.

Meanwhile, more than 100 million girls between the ages of 5 and 17 are involved in child labor, making up 46 percent of all child labor. 53 million girls are involved in hazardous forms of work, as defined by the International Labour Organization (ILO) Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention No. 182.

Girls also spend more time on household chores than boys—that is, unpaid labor like fetching and carrying water and firewood, cooking, cleaning, and caring for younger siblings. This not only leads to the opportunity cost of foregone time for education and studying, but it can also put girls’ physical safety at risk, especially when they must travel long distances for tasks like water collection.

Legal Reforms and Changing Norms

In order to address these barriers for women’s and girls’ empowerment, legal and cultural obstacles must be broken down. Many countries have enacted legal reforms to advance women’s land tenure, although much more can be done to eliminate discriminatory laws such as those regarding land ownership and inheritance, as well as ensuring that laws are observed and enforced.

The proliferation of new technology can also provide new avenues for female legal rights. Mass media tools, from radio and TV to digital media, are increasingly being leveraged in the efforts to eliminate child marriage. New digital tools are being used to develop model ID systems, such as those within the World Bank’s Identification for Development Initiative (ID4D), launched in 2014.

Involving men and boys in efforts to empower girls and women is crucial. To eliminate child marriage, groups are working with men and boys at a community level, as well as religious and other traditional leaders, about the value of girls and the detrimental effects of child marriage. Landesa, a land rights NGO, operates its Girls Project in West Bengal, India which seeks to increase both girls and boys understanding of girls’ legal land rights.  

On a global level, attention to these legal issues is increasing. In 2002, the ILO declared June 12 World Day Against Child Labor, and in 2010, business leaders joined the ILO to create the Child Labor Platform, a business-led forum for tackling child labor in the supply chain, and includes global companies such as Coca-Cola, Nestle, and Mars, Inc. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted in 2015, recognize land rights as a key tool for ending poverty (Goal 1), mitigating hunger (Goal 2), and for achieving gender equality (Goal 5). The SDGs include targets such as providing legal identity for all (Goal 16) and eliminating all harmful practices such as child, early, and forced marriage (Goal 5) by the year 2030. 

Ultimately, education is one of the most powerful ways to advance girls’ and women’s legal rights. The next post in the She Succeeds series will take a look at the progress that has made in girls’ education worldwide, the obstacles that still remain, and what it will take to ensure that she succeeds in school.

Join us for the livestream and digital discussion for the Council’s International Women’s Day Global Health Symposium 2017 to explore how innovation, storytelling, and immersive technologies are improving the lives of women and children globally. Tweet your examples and stories of progress at @GlobalAgDev using #SheSucceeds.