3.5 RIGHTS TO LAND AND PRODUCTIVE RESOURCES Rights to land and productive resources are fundamental aspects in the lives of both women and men living in rural areas. Most households rely on their land for food and income security. However, structural barriers, inadequate legal and policy frameworks, and discriminatory social and cultural norms limit women’s control and ownership of land and other productive resources.25 The UN Working Group on discrimination against women in law and practice found that “women are more harshly affected by land tenure insecurity due to direct and indirect discriminatory laws and practices at the national, community and family level”.26 The survey showed how NHRIs work on improving access to land and productive resources for women living in rural areas. For example, the NHRI of Côte d’Ivoire is currently engaged in a project on this issue, the ultimate objective of which is to fight poverty. The NHRI of Colombia organized training workshops in collaboration with women’s organizations from the Sumapaz region, in order to ensure that women know their rights in this respect and learn how to exercise them. Some NHRIs have made specific efforts to improve women’s participation in decision-making processes concerning rural development projects and to ensure that they actually benefit from such projects, such as the NHRI of Costa Rica. It also found that violence against women can be an obstacle when women are being expelled from their land by the aggressor and that the competent authorities lacked a gender perspective in their analysis of these cases. As a consequence, the NHRI recommended that specific tools and gender indicators be made available to the concerned public officials. In cases of displacement of rural populations due to the acquisition of land for mega projects, the NHRI of India has made recommendations to the concerned government authorities for relief and/or rehabilitation of affected persons, especially women and children. The NHRI of Burundi also deals with individual land rights cases and frequently assists women in obtaining property rights to land that was owned by their deceased husband or parents, as customary rules in the country do not allow women to inherit land. It should be noted that both the NHRIs of Togo and Côte d’Ivoire have done work to promote civil marriage in rural areas where it is common to only celebrate a customary marriage, leaving women with less rights in case of separation or death of the husband. 4. ENVIRONMENT, CLIMATE CHANGE AND NATURAL DISASTERS Women living in rural areas are particularly affected by climate change. Their unequal access to land and productive resources, combined with limited mobility and decision-making power, make it more difficult for them to cope with the effects of climate change.27 As a result, the impacts of climate change amplify existing gender equalities28. 25 UN Women, Concept Note, Expert Group Meeting on ‘Challenges and opportunities in achieving gender equality and the empowerment of rural women and girls, September 2017, online: http://www.unwomen.org//media/headquarters/attachments/sections/csw/62/csw62 egm concept note.pdf?la=en&vs=524, p. 7. 26 OHCHR, UN Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice, Insecure land rights for women threaten progress on gender equality and sustainable development (July 2017), online: www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Women/WRGS/Womenslandright.docx, p. 1. 27 Unites Nations Development Programme, Overview of linkages between climate change and gender (New York, 2013), online: http://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/library/gender/Genderand%20Environment/PB1-AP-OverviewGender-and-climate-change.pdf, p. 2. 28 UN Women, Concept note, supra note 25Fehler! Textmarke nicht definiert., p. 8. 13