Earlier this year, Women, Business and the Law published its 2018 report measuring legal restrictions against women in 189 economies across the global. On November 12, 2018, the report was successfully launched in Santiago, Chile. The event had high level representatives, including the Executive Secretary of United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL) and the Minister of Gender in Chile. Senior Vice President and World Bank Group General Counsel, Sandie Okoro, sent her congratulations and important messages on gender equality and women empowerment through video.
The 2018 report finds that governments in 65 economies took steps to improve women’s economic inclusion, enacting 87 legal reforms in the past two years. However, women continue to face widespread barriers, entrenched in laws, that keep them out of jobs and prevent them from owning a business by restricting their access to credit or control over marital property.