President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear President Bush:

I am gravely concerned about women’s property rights violations. Millions of women around the world suffer abuses of their equal rights to own, inherit, and control property. As a result, many women end up impoverished, struggling to meet their families’ basic needs, living in dangerous conditions, and vulnerable to violence and disease—including HIV/AIDS.

Violations of women’s property rights are especially severe in sub-Saharan Africa. In many countries, women are excluded from inheriting, evicted from their lands and homes by in-laws, stripped of their possessions, and forced to engage in risky sexual practices in order to keep their property—all because they are women. When they divorce or separate from their husbands, women are often expelled from their homes with only their clothing. Married women can seldom stop their husbands from selling family property. Women who fight back are often beaten, raped, or ostracized. These devastating practices violate women’s human rights, doom development efforts, and undermine the fight against HIV/AIDS.

The U.S. government must play a critical role in eliminating violations of women’s property rights as it promotes women’s human rights and economic development. It should:

• urge governments to promote greater protection of women’s property rights by changing discriminatory laws and customs and imposing criminal sanctions on those who violate women’s property rights;

• provide development assistance in ways that promote greater protection of women’s property rights; and

• speak out publicly and emphatically in support of women’s equal property rights.

For the sake of women around the world, I urge you to put women’s equal property rights high on your agenda.

Sincerely,