twenty-fifth special session of the General Assembly, and annexed to its resolution S25/2 of 9 June 2001,
Recalling resolution 42/1 of 13 March 1998 of the Commission on the Status
of Women, in which, inter alia, the Commission urged States to design and revise
laws to ensure that women were accorded full and equal rights to own land and other
property, and the right to adequate housing, including through the right to inheritance,
and to undertake administrative reforms and other necessary measures to give women
the same right as men to credit, capital, appropriate technologies, access to markets
and information,
Recalling also the resolve of the Heads of State and Government expressed in
the United Nations Millennium Declaration to have achieved, by the year 2020, a
significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum-dwellers,
Concerned that any deterioration in the general housing situation
disproportionally affects the poor, including women and children,
Recognizing that adequate housing is a key element for fostering family
integration, contributing to social equity and strengthening the feeling of belonging,
security and human solidarity, as stated in the outcome document of the twentyseventh special session of the General Assembly, on children, entitled “A world fit for
children”, annexed to its resolution S-27/2 of 10 May 2002, and welcoming the
commitment stated in the document to attach high priority to overcoming the housing
shortage and other infrastructure needs, particularly for children in marginalized periurban and remote rural areas,
Noting the work of the United Nations treaty bodies, in particular of the
Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in the promotion of the rights
related to adequate housing, and in this regard noting the affirmation in its general
comment No. 4 that the human right to adequate housing is of central importance for
the enjoyment of all economic, social and cultural rights, as well as general comments
Nos. 7 and 16,
1.
Acknowledges the work undertaken by the Special Rapporteur on
adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and
on the right to non-discrimination in this context, as well as the advancing of the
conceptual understanding of the right to adequate housing;