Person: Hasan, Tazeen
Development Economics
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Hasan, Tazeen
Fields of Specialization
Gender, International law
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Development Economics
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Last updated:June 13, 2023
Biography
Tazeen Hasan joined Women, Business and the Law in 2014. Prior to this, she was the legal specialist for the World Development Report 2012: Gender Equality and Development and the World Bank report Opening Doors: Gender Equality in the Middle East and North Africa. She is a coauthor of various World Bank publications, including Empowering Women: Legal Rights and Economic Opportunities in Africa and Voice and Agency: Empowering Women and Girls for Shared Prosperity. Prior to joining the World Bank Group, she practiced as a barrister in the UK specializing in civil and commercial law, and subsequently worked in Kenya as a legal adviser to NGOs. She obtained a Masters in International Law from the London School of Economics and a BA in Law from Pembroke College, University of Oxford. She is fluent in Urdu, Hindi and French.
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Publication Accelerating Gender Equality Through Reforming Legal Frameworks(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-06-13) Elefante, Marina; Hasan, Tazeen; Hyland, Marie; Mazoni Silva Martins, Natalia; Trumbic, TeaThis thematic note emphasizes the role of laws and regulations in safeguarding women’s economic opportunities, for the purpose of informing the update of the World Bank Group’s Gender Strategy. The note demonstrates the importance of legal gender equality and draws on data and analysis from the World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law initiative and other evidence to explore legal barriers that hinder women’s economic participation and showcase successful reforms. It also offers examples of how World Bank projects have addressed legal frameworks toward gender equality and concludes with proposals for future areas of operational focus and research.Publication Empowering Women : Legal Rights and Economic Opportunities in Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2012-10-04) Hallward-Driemeier, Mary; Hasan, TazeenThis book looks at the effect of legal and economic rights on women's economic opportunities. It focuses on entrepreneurship because women in Africa are active entrepreneurs, and the links between property rights and the ability to enter contracts in one's own name affect entrepreneurial activities. The laws that are the focus of this book are not business laws and regulations, which are generally gender blind and presuppose that individuals can own property or enter into contracts. Instead, the book examines family, inheritance, and land laws, which oft en restrict these rights in ways that hurt women. This book surveys constitutions and statutes in all 47 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to document where gender gaps in these laws impinge on women's legal capacity, property rights, or both. The book also looks at some labor law issues, such as restrictions on the types of industries or hours of work in which women may engage and provisions for equal pay for work of equal value. These laws affect women as employees and influence the attractiveness of wage employment versus entrepreneurship. They were also selected because they affect the choice of enterprise women may run. The equal pay for work of equal value provisions are also of interest as an indicator of the recognition of women's broader economic rights. This book provides a series of indicators that show whether a country does or does not provide particular legal provisions. Several points are worth emphasizing in interpreting these indicators. First, the indicators are binary; there is no attempt to differentiate between small and large gender gaps. Second, the indicators are not used to generate an index or otherwise aggregate the indicators; no weights are given to differentiate the relative importance of different sets of laws. Third, the indicators reflect whether certain legal provisions are recognized in a country or not; because the link between the indicator and gender gaps is not always straightforward, care must be taken in making value judgments. Although some indicators reveal that women are treated equally or identify gender differences in treatment, others do not. Although recognition of these sources of law can have implications for women's rights, it does not necessarily imply that women's rights are stronger or weaker. Conversely, the inclusion of some protections for women's rights may reflect not the strong standing of women but rather the fact that gender equality is not seen as axiomatic and needs to be explicitly stated. Second and third chapters focus on formal rights and how they have been upheld in court decisions. Fourth chapter examines the gap between laws on the books and practice on the ground. Fifth chapter looks at how both the substance of law and women's access to justice issues can be improved to expand women's ability to pursue economic opportunities.Publication Antidiscrimination Law and Shared Prosperity: An Analysis of the Legal Framework of Six Economies and Their Impact on the Equality of Opportunities of Ethnic, Religious, and Sexual Minorities(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-03) Panter, Elaine; Primiani, Tanya; Hasan, Tazeen; Calderon Pontaza, EduardoThis paper looks at the structural marginalization of eth-nic, religious, and sexual minorities in six pilot economies (Bulgaria, Mexico, Morocco, the Netherlands, Tanzania, and Vietnam) and proposes a new methodology for collecting cross-country comparable data on antidiscrimination legal frameworks. The data cover six areas of law, ad-dressed by six indicators: (a) access to institutions, (b) access to education, (c) access to the labor market, (d) access to property, (e) access to public services and social protection, and (f) protection from hate crimes and hate speech. The laws, policies, and regulations presented fall under one of these indicators. For each, the paper attempts to identify the minority gap, the difference between the legal treatment of the ruling majority and that of the minority. Data were collected through two sources: first, standardized surveys submitted to ombudsman institutions, lawyers, academics, and civil society organizations; second, public government records on laws and regulations and data from international legal databases and human rights organizations. The idea driving the study is that institutional measures that hamper the access of ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities to the labor market and financial systems directly affect their economic performance and, as a consequence, represent a cost for the economy. Among the findings of the study is that antidiscrimination labor legislation is well developed in all six pilot economies, but many gaps still exist in access to property and in access to public goods and social services. The study also found that, of the three groups covered by the study, the least protected under the law are the sexual minorities. Although data from six economies cannot provide statistical evidence, findings suggest the need for further research. The authors hope to encourage a wider debate on the consequences of systematic discrimination against minorities and to help governments critically review their legal frameworks to ensure equal opportunities for all citizens, regardless of religion, ethnicity, gender identity or sexual orientation.Publication Voice and Agency : Empowering Women and Girls for Shared Prosperity(Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 2014) Klugman, Jeni; Hanmer, Lucia; Twigg, Sarah; Hasan, Tazeen; McCleary-Sills, Jennifer; Santamaria, JuliethThe 2012 World Development Report recognized that expanding women's agency - their ability to make decisions and take advantage of opportunities is key to improving their lives as well as the world. This report represents a major advance in global knowledge on this critical front. The vast data and thousands of surveys distilled in this report cast important light on the nature of constraints women and girls continue to face globally. This report identifies promising opportunities and entry points for lasting transformation, such as interventions that reach across sectors and include life-skills training, sexual and reproductive health education, conditional cash transfers, and mentoring. It finds that addressing what the World Health Organization has identified as an epidemic of violence against women means sharply scaling up engagement with men and boys. The report also underlines the vital role information and communication technologies can play in amplifying women's voices, expanding their economic and learning opportunities, and broadening their views and aspirations. The World Bank Group's twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity demand no less than the full and equal participation of women and men, girls and boys, around the world.Publication Women's Legal Rights over 50 Years : Progress, Stagnation or Regression?(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-09) Rusu, Anca Bogdana; Hallward-Driemeier, Mary; Hasan, TazeenUsing a newly compiled database of women's property rights and legal capacity covering 100 countries over 50 years, this paper analyzes the triggers and barriers to reform. The database documents gender gaps in the ability to access and own assets, to sign legal documents in one's own name, and to have equality or non-discrimination as a guiding principle of the country's constitution. Progress in reducing these constraints has been dramatic -- half of the constraints documented in the 1960s had been removed by 2010. However, some sticky areas persist where laws have not changed or have even regressed. The paper analyzes potential drivers of reforms. A significant finding is that the relationship with a country's level of development and the extent of its reforms is not straightforward. For the first half of the sample, there was no systematic connection; only in the last 25 years have increases in income been associated with higher probabilities for reform, but only in lower-income countries. With the remaining constraints as prevalent in middle- as low-income countries, increased growth is not necessarily going to spark additional reforms. Clearer patterns emerge from the momentum created by international conventions, such as the Committee to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), women's political representation at the national level, mobilization of women's networks, and increasing labor force participation in sectors that provide a voice for women, which are positive forces for change. Conversely, conflict and weak rule of law can entrench a discriminatory status quo. And much is at stake; strengthening women's legal rights is associated with important development outcomes that can benefit society as a whole.Publication Women's Movements, Plural Legal Systems and the Botswana Constitution : How Reform Happens(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-11) Tanzer, Ziona; Hasan, TazeenCollective action by women's networks has been a strong driver of legislative change in many countries across the world. Women's groups in Botswana have used advocacy tools such as testing the implementation of gender equality principles in the national court system. In 1992, women's legal networks in the Unity Dow case successfully challenged discriminatory statutory citizenship laws. This victory triggered far-reaching reforms of the citizenship law, family law, and even the Constitution itself. Two decades later, another successful "test" case, the Mmusi case, has challenged the customary law practice of favoring male heirs as contrary to constitutional principles of equality. The paper explores the role that judges and national courts play in implementing gender equality principles and upholding state commitments to the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. The paper also highlights the role of governments in taking on the concerns of their citizens and cementing the principle of equality in national legal frameworks. The backdrop to this process is a plural legal system where both customary and statutory laws and courts exist side by side. How women negotiate their rights through these multiple systems by coalition building and using "good practice" examples from other countries is important to understand from a policy perspective and how this "bottom-up" approach can contribute to women's economic empowerment in other national contexts.Publication Women’s Legal Rights over 50 Years : What Is the Impact of Reform?(World Bank, Washington, D.C., 2013-09) Bogdana Rusu, Anca; Hallward-Driemeier, Mary; Hasan, TazeenThis study uses a newly compiled database of women's property rights and legal capacity covering 100 countries over 50 years to test for the impact of legal reforms on employment, health, and education outcomes for women and girls. The database demonstrates gender gaps in the ability to access and own property, sign legal documents in one's own name, and have equality or non-discrimination as a guiding principle of the country's constitution. In the initial period, 75 countries had gender gaps in at least one of these areas and often multiple ones. By 2010, 57 countries had made reforms that strengthened women's economic rights, including 28 countries that had eliminated all of the constraints monitored here. In the cross-section and within countries over time, the removal of gender gaps in rights is associated with greater participation of women in the labor force, greater movement out of agricultural employment, higher rates of women in wage employment, lower adolescent fertility, lower maternal and infant mortality, and higher female educational enrollment. This paper provides evidence on how the strengthening of women's legal rights is associated with important development outcomes.