Gender Discrimination And Family Law

Many family laws within South Asia reflect deep-rooted cultural values related to the role of women and their inferior status within the community. The girl child is often considered to be a burden hence she is married at an early age and has little control over her own sexuality. In India, a married woman who has an extra-marital relationship can be found criminally liable for adultery, but there is no corresponding criminal office for a married man. Divorce laws also discriminate against women.

Women with HIV often carry the blame for having infected husbands and risk abandonment. Many inheritance laws also discriminate against women, in some cases by denying women any inheritance rights at all. For a woman who may be sick as a result of her HIV infections, such laws can have devastating consequences.

The steps to be initiated by every state

• Avoid stigmatizing women as “vectors of disease” regardless of the source of infection.
• Avoid placing the blame for HIV transmission and other sexually transmitted diseases on female sex workers.
• Support women’s efforts to get their partners to use condoms.
• Empower women to enable them to make their own sexual choices.