Page 9 SPECIAL FOCUS: REFORMING DISCRIMINATORY FAMILY LAW THE LAST BIG LEGAL HURDLE TO GLOBAL GENDER EQUALITY What do we mean by Family Law? Family law reform today remains a highly intractable area, not least because most family laws are based on religion, custom, and tradition. Religious, cultural, and ethnic identities are vested in family laws. These laws include, for example, marriage, divorce, custody and guardianship, property rights, as well as inheritance. They may be codified by the State or uncodified and unwritten. Attempts to reform family laws are often portrayed as threats to group identity and rights and used as justifications to resist demands for reform towards further equality. “The failure to ensure the equality of women and girls within the family undermines any attempt to ensure their equality in all areas of society. ... equality in the private domain - the family - remains one of the biggest hurdles to achieving gender equality.” (UN Working Group on discrimination against women and girls)12 The right to culture and to freedom of religion are also human rights, but they cannot quash a person’s fundamental human right to equality and non-discrimination. It is a derogation of a State’s duty when a State explicitly allows exceptions for customary family law, which may not always be written down. This can be seen around the world - from Zambia where the minimum age of marriage is 21 but under customary law a pubescent girl can be married off, to the United States, where unwritten sex discriminatory religious laws and practices, such as polygamy,13 child marriage, and inequality in divorce rights in certain communities have gone unchecked. The impact on women, girls and society World Bank data14 shows that many countries ranked at the bottom of the index for legal equality are those whose family laws, including male guardianship systems, explicitly discriminate against women and girls. This is not surprising. These practices and systems can further violate women’s and girls’ rights to education as well as economic and political opportunity and participation. A recent cross-country study drew the conclusion that “egalitarian reform of family law may be the most crucial precondition for empowering women economically”.15 If a man can prohibit his wife from going out to work in the first place, it makes no difference to her whether there is a law in place to protect her from sexual