Gender discrimination

A father alleged that his son-in-law had kidnapped his daughter.  The daughter showed that she was of age and had married of her own free will.  The court held that a family can have no control over who an adult chooses to marry.

Karen Atala Riffo, a judge in Chile, and her husband separated in 2002 and agreed that she would retain custody of their three daughters. After a few years, Ms. Atala began to live with her female partner. In response, her husband filed for custody claiming that the mother’s homosexuality was detrimental to the children. The lower court confirmed the grant of custody to the mother, finding that there was no evidence that homosexuality was pathological conduct that would make Ms. Atala unfit as a mother.

In 1978, the court of first instance ruled in favor of Graciela Ato del Avellanal on a claim for overdue rent owed to her by tenants of two apartment buildings she owned in Lima. The Superior Court reversed the judgment in 1980 because article 168 of the Peruvian Civil Code stated that when a woman is married, only the husband is entitled to represent matrimonial property before the Courts; therefore, Avellanal did not herself have standing to sue.

Wife and husband married in community of property, where all property of either spouse is combined in a joint estate regardless of whether it was acquired before or during the marriage and regardless of how much each spouse contributed. Despite marrying in community of property, the couple was not permitted to register newly purchased land in both of their names because the wife had continued to use her maiden name.

The respondent, Ms. Unity Dow, brought a case to the High Court of Botswana asserting that sections 4 and 5 of the Citizenship Act violated her right to equal protection of the law and protection from discrimination on the basis of sex because the sections of the Citizenship Act treated children differently depending on whether they were born to citizen mothers or to citizen fathers. The respondent had one child with an American man prior to their marriage and two children after.

Twenty Mauritian women submitted a communication to the Committee stating that the Immigration (Amendment) Act of 1977 and the Deportation (Amendment Act) of 1977 constitute discrimination based on sex against Mauritian women, violation of the right to found a family and a home, and removal of the protection of the courts of law. Prior to the enactment of these laws, alien men and women married to Mauritian nationals could equally enjoy residence status by virtue of their marriage.

In the case of Austin Health v. Tsikos, the respondent claimed that she had been directly discriminated against in her employment based on her age and sex. She claimed she had been denied the opportunity to renegotiate her salary which was at the rate specified in the enterprise agreement, despite (among other things) being paid considerably less than a male employee who reported to her, who was classified at a lower grade under the enterprise agreement, but was paid well above the rates specified in the enterprise agreement.

The case concerned a challenge to the employer’s retrenchment policy. The applicant alleged that the criterion was discriminatory as substantially higher proportion of men could comply than women. Although the retrenchment applied to both sexes, there were fewer women in positions of seniority who were immune from the retrenchment because the employer had a history of discriminating in its hiring decisions. As such, the court found indirect discrimination because the retrenchment policy unlawfully maintained discriminatory circumstances.

Plaintiff was a transgender woman from Mexico who was subjected to sexual assault and rape by Mexican police and military throughout her life. In 2006, she was arrested in America for driving under the influence. In 2007 she was deported to Mexico. After suffering more mistreatment in Mexico, Avendano-Hernandez returned to the U.S. and appealed for asylum under the United Nations Convention Against Torture.