CEDAW/C/GC/30 61. The Committee recommends that States parties: (a) Ensure that measures to prevent statelessness are applied to all women and girls and address populations that are particularly susceptible to being rendered stateless by conflict, such as female internally displaced persons, refugees, asylum seekers and trafficked persons; (b) Ensure that measures to protect stateless women and girls remain in place before, during and after conflict; (c) Guarantee conflict-affected women and girls equal rights to obtain documents necessary for the exercise of their legal rights and the right to have such documentation issued in their own names, and ensure the prompt issuance or replacement of documents without imposing unreasonable conditions, such as requiring displaced women and girls to return to their area of original residence to obtain documents; (d) Ensure individual documentation, including in post-conflict migration flows, of internally displaced women, refugee and asylum-seeking women and separated and unaccompanied girls, and ensure the timely and equal registration of all births, marriages and divorces. 7. Marriage and family relations (arts. 15-16) 62. Inequalities in marriage and family relations affect women’s experiences in conflict and post-conflict situations. In such situations, women and girls may be forced into marriage to placate armed groups or because their post-conflict poverty forces them to marry for financial security, affecting their rights to choose a spouse and enter freely into marriage, as guaranteed by article 16 (1)(a) and 16 (1)(b). During conflict, girls are particularly susceptible to forced marriage, a harmful practice that is increasingly used by armed groups. Families also force girls into marriage as a result of poverty and a misconception that it may protect them against rape. 63. Equal access to property, as guaranteed by article 16 (1)(h), is particularly critical in post-conflict situations, given that housing and land are crucial to recovery efforts, in particular for women in female-headed households, the number of whom tends to rise in crisis owing to family separation and widowhood. Women’s limited and unequal access to property becomes particularly damaging in postconflict situations, especially when displaced women who have lost husbands or close male relatives return to their homes to find that they have no legal title to their land and, as a result, no means of earning a livelihood. 64. Forced pregnancies, abortions or sterilization of women in conflict-affected areas violate myriad women’s rights, including the right under article 16 (1)(e) to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children. 65. The Committee reiterates its general recommendations Nos. 21 and 29 and further recommends that States parties: (a) Prevent, investigate and punish gender-based violations such as forced marriages, pregnancies, abortions or sterilization of women and girls in conflictaffected areas; (b) Adopt gender-sensitive legislation and policies that recognize the particular disadvantages that women face in claiming their right to inheritance and 13-54331 17/24