U.N. Women report examines women's access to justice worldwide

"More than half of working women in the world, 600 million, are trapped in insecure jobs without legal protection, according to the first flagship report of the new agency U.N. Women. A similar number do not have even basic protection against domestic violence, it finds, while sexual assault has become a hallmark of modern conflict," the Guardian reports.

The report examines "women's access to justice across the globe" and "offers 10 recommendations to overcome the paradox that while huge improvements have been made in the legal position of women over the last century, there is still a dramatic lag in translating that into equality and justice," the newspaper writes. "The first of the 10 recommendations is providing support for women's legal organizations ... Other recommendations include further legal reform to ensure paid maternity leave, equal pay and equal property rights, support for the development of one-stop services to deal with crimes such as rape, and an increase in the recruitment of women into the police force," the Guardian writes (Bunting, 7/6).

Michelle Bachelet, executive director of U.N. Women, discusses the findings of the report in a Guardian "Poverty Matters Blog" post. "It is comprehensive and sobering, cataloguing both the lack of legal protection women receive and the reasons behind this failure," she writes, adding that it is "not all bad news. For, as well as identifying where justice is failing women, the report also identifies where and how progress is being made" (7/6). 

Trustlaw also summarizes some key findings from the report in a factbox (Curtis, 7/5).