ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a feminist analysis of legal empowerment strategies in informal settlements. Following discussions of the literature, an analytical framework is provided for assessing the impact of community legal empowerment on women informal settlement dwellers. The framework distinguishes between three dimensions of women's empowerment: (1) fulfilment of women's practical and strategic needs; (2) women's collective awareness of power imbalances and understanding of gender structures; and (3) women's exercise of agency and participation in decision-making spaces. Drawing on case studies from Buenos Aires, South Africa and Delhi, the chapter analyses to what extent different strategies integrated a gendered lens and, in turn, were more or less successful in advancing gender equality. The conclusion is that to effectively promote gender justice, legal empowerment strategies must be explicitly designed with a gender lens.
