Want to Make Your Country Richer and Safer? Fix Laws That Keep Women Down, World Bank Says Jane Little - PRI's The World
go to original September 15, 2015

Getting to Equal (World Bank)

The World Bank is not known for its bra-burning campaigns for gender equality, but its latest report, Women, Business and the Law 2016: Getting to Equal, shows how discrimination against women can hurt countries’ bottom lines. Not surprisingly, improving women’s economic opportunities can make everyone richer — and safer.

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In the biggest report of its kind, the bank surveyed 173 economies. It found that legal gender differences are widespread:

• 155 of the 173 have at least one law impeding women’s economic opportunities.

• In 100 economies, women face gender-based job restrictions.

• In 18 economies, husbands can legally prevent their wives from working.

• 46 economies have no laws protecting women from domestic violence.

These are sobering statistics, especially coming on the 20th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration, when 189 countries signed a pledge to end gender discrimination. But the fact that the World Bank has elevated the issue is a positive sign for many veteran campaigners.

“[It is] making a strong statement, which is that discrimination in law affects economic development, and you are not going to get where you want to be as a world without focusing on things like women’s inheritance rights, women’s education, women’s rights to work or property rights,” says Yasmeen Hassan, executive director of the NGO Equality Now.

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