"Women's role in land matters was generally second to that of their menfolk - even in traditionally matrilineal societies. Christianity, commerce and centralized governmment led to some changes and further adaptation is in progress. This book of studies by women from two Melanesia societies (Fiji and Vanuatu) and three Polynesian (Tonga, Samoa and the Cook Islands) is the first to focus on this topic of growing importance to Pacific women."--Back cover.

Across the world women constitute an integral part of the agricultural sector. This volume is based on feminist responses to farming women’s struggle for economic rights and social justice in Asia, and seeks to provide a greater understanding of the development consequences of women’s marginal, limited ownership rights to land and other productive assets. Using comprehensive analyses, quantitative and qualitative data, and case studies from India, China, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, and other countries of the Asia-Pacific region, this volume brings together scholars and activists engaged with women’s unmediated entitlement to land and productive assets. While generally taking a position in favour of asset redistribution, the volume addresses two major issues: first, the conflict between legal measures and socio-cultural norms, in a context where laws that seek to secure gender equality and women’s economic empowerment are often overruled by norms that favour men; and second, how changes in the global economy in relation to traditional farming practices have adversely impacted women’s rights, especially in regions where they previously enjoyed more customary rights in asset control and management. The book draws attention to issues of economic security, gender equitable access to resources and asset-building, human rights and law, land-based livelihoods, caste and ethnic diversity, and voices in the women’s movements. This book will be useful to policy makers, civil society organisations, researchers and students of gender and women’s studies, development studies, sociology, economics and agriculture.

Legal scholars, economists, and international development practitioners often assume that the state is capable of 'securing' rights to land and addressing gender inequality in land tenure. In this innovative study of land tenure in Solomon Islands, Rebecca Monson challenges these assumptions. Monson demonstrates that territorial disputes have given rise to a legal system characterised by state law, custom, and Christianity, and that the legal construction and regulation of property has, in fact, deepened gender inequalities and other forms of social difference. These processes have concentrated formal land control in the hands of a small number of men leaders, and reproduced the state as a hypermasculine domain, with significant implications for public authority, political participation, and state formation. Drawing insights from legal scholarship and political ecology in particular, this book offers a significant study of gender and legal pluralism in the Pacific, illuminating ongoing global debates about gender inequality, land tenure, ethnoterritorial struggles and the post colonial state.

This book looks at the challenges and contemporary issues raised by human rights in the island countries of the South West Pacific which have come under the influence of the common law – where the legal systems are complex and perceptions of rights varies widely. Drawing on a wide range of resources to present a contemporary and evolving picture of human rights in the island states of the South Pacific region, the book considers the human rights aspects of constitutions, legal institutions and structures, social organisation, culture and custom, tradition and change. The materials provide legal, historical, political, social and cultural insights into the lived experience of human rights in the region supported by illustrative material from case-law, media reports, and policy documents. The book also locates the human rights concerns of Pacific islanders firmly within the wider theoretical and international domain while at the same time maintaining focus on the importance of the unique identity of Pacific island nations and people. Human Rights in the South Pacific will appeal to anyone interested in the region or in human rights including international rights advocates, investors and developers, policy-makers, representatives of government and civic society and those wishing to acquire a better understanding of what countries emerging from colonial rule face in developing but still retaining their identity.

CEDAW - the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women - is a powerful international human rights instrument that reflects a global determination to achieve gender equality. This book looks at the cultural and legal challenges relating to the implementation of CEDAW, and the individual approaches adopted.

Women constitute a large portion of the economically active population engaged in agriculture. International instruments on human rights, the environment and sustainable development reaffirm the principle of non-discrimination on the basis of sex or gender. Yet women often face gendered obstacles in realizing their rights and feeding their families. The right to an adequate standard of living, including adequate food, may thus not be fulfilled. These obstacles may stem from directly or indirectly discriminatory norms or from entrenched socio-cultural practices, or both. This study analyses the gender dimension of agriculture-related legislation in a selection of different countries around the world, examining the legal status of women in three key areas: rights to land and other natural resources; rights of women agricultural workers; and rights concerning women's agricultural self-employment activities, ranging from women's status in rural cooperatives to their access to credit, training and extension services.

Winner of the 2020 Porchlight Business Book of the Year Award One of The Guardian's Best Books of 2020. Finalist for the 2020 Royal Science Society Book Prize and the 2020 Porchlight Business Book Awards. Longlisted for the 2020 Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year “Linda Scott shines a light on women’s essential and often invisible contributions to our global economy—while combining insight, analysis, and interdisciplinary data to make a compelling and actionable case for unleashing women’s economic power.” —Melinda Gates, author of The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World A leading thinker's groundbreaking examination of women's economic empowerment Linda Scott coined the phrase “Double X Economy” to address the systemic exclusion of women from the world financial order. In The Double X Economy, Scott argues on the strength of hard data and on-the-ground experience that removing those barriers to women’s success is a win for everyone, regardless of gender. Scott opens our eyes to the myriad economic injustices that constrain women throughout the world: fathers buying and selling daughters against their will; husbands burning brides whose dowries have been spent; men appropriating women’s earnings and widows’ land; banks discriminating against women applying for loans; corporations paying women less than men; men treating women as their intellectual inferiors due to primitive notions of female brain development; governments depriving women of affordable childcare; and so much more. As Scott takes us from the streets of Accra, where sex trafficking is widespread, to American business schools, where women are routinely patronized, the pervasiveness of the Double X Economy becomes glaringly obvious. But Scott believes that this rampant problem can be solved. She proposes concrete actions and urges her readers to rise up and join the global movement for women’s economic empowerment that is gaining momentum by the day.