STATE OF THE WORLD’S CITIES

2008/2009

Case Study
Woman-headed households suffer disproportionately from inadequate housing

s Turkish women taking a lunch break in Ankara ©Kobby Dagan/iStockphoto

A recent report released by the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions notes that while previous studies found that women who migrate to cities do so to join family members – mostly husbands – in the city, this trend appears to be changing: an increasing number of women are migrating to cities on their own, often to escape domestic violence or discrimination in rural areas, or because they have been disinherited. In some sub-Saharan African countries, stigmatization due to HIV/AIDS has also forced women to move to cities. In Kenya, for instance, many rural women who are infected with HIV, or who have lost a husband to the disease, are sent away from the marital home along with their children. Many of these women end up in urban slums, while their children, who are presumed to be infected with the virus, are often denied a share of the father’s property. While poor women and men in urban centres both face insecurity of land tenure and shelter, women are especially disadvantaged because they are often excluded from secure tenure as a consequence of cultural norms and unequal legal rights in legislative and policy frameworks of political systems. Women who become single heads of households, particularly in Africa, are particularly vulnerable, as in many countries in the region, they can still only access land through husbands or fathers. Where women’s land ownership is relationship-based, they risk losing access to land after widowhood, divorce, desertion or male migration, which can lead to destitution. Women who experience violence in their relationships are often not able to secure a safe home for themselves and their children because they lack rights to land,