Giving Compass' Take:

• In an article for Global Citizen, Leah Rodriguez condemns family laws in certain countries that obstruct women from autonomy in citizenship and other public matters.

• Why is it so difficult to reach global consensus on issues of social equality?  What can we do to call attention to these issues more broadly?

• Learn about how some nonprofits are tackling gender inequality across the world.

Advocacy organization Equality Now released a report on Monday that holds governments accountable in the Beijing +25 Review.

The organization’s fifth “Words and Deeds” report focuses on sex-discriminatory family laws and looks at how marital status, personal status, economic status, and gender-based violence affects girls and women. Sex-discriminatory laws continue to stop women from reaching their full potential by preventing them from working, receiving an education, and becoming economically secure.

Family laws are one of the hardest roadblocks to achieving gender equality because they are so intertwined with religious, cultural, and ethnic identity, the report said.

But one of the commitments made in Beijing in 1995 was to revoke any remaining laws that discriminate on the basis of sex, regardless of if the government or family members enforce them. Reform of discriminatory family laws needs to be prioritized, the organization said.

Many governments have failed to secure human rights for all women and girls and instead prioritize religious and cultural freedom.

Sex-discriminatory personal status laws also make it difficult for women and girls to have autonomy. These laws violate women’s civil and political rights outside of the home and bar them from the right to citizenship, travel, and more. They stop women from passing their nationality or citizenship to their children and/or spouses, making them and their families insecure, and limiting their participation in public life.

The report is intended to be a useful tool for governments and campaigns and urges leaders to “urgently repeal or amend all laws that explicitly discriminate on the basis of sex,” to successfully implement the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.

Read the full article about how discriminatory family laws obstruct global gender equality by Leah Rodriguez at Global Citizen.