Editing Gender equality (section)

=====Bride price=====
{{Main|Bride price}}
[[Bride price]] (also called bridewealth or bride token) is money, property, or other form of wealth paid by a groom or his family to the parents of the bride. This custom often leads to women having reduced ability to control their fertility. For instance, in northern Ghana, the payment of bride price signifies a woman's requirement to bear children, and women using birth control face threats, violence and reprisals.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.popcouncil.org/uploads/pdfs/councilarticles/sfp/SFP301Bawah.pdf|title=Women's Fears and Men's Anxieties : The Impact of Family Planning on Gender Relations in Northern Ghana|website=Popcouncil.org|access-date=14 November 2017|archive-date=20 April 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190420115200/https://www.popcouncil.org/research/womens-fears-and-mens-anxieties-the-impact-of-family-planning-on-gender-rel|url-status=live}}</ref> The custom of bride price has been criticized as contributing to the mistreatment of women in marriage, and preventing them from leaving abusive marriages. [[UN Women]] recommended its abolition, and stated that: "Legislation should ... State that divorce shall not be contingent upon the return of bride price but such provisions shall not be interpreted to limit women's right to divorce; State that a perpetrator of [[domestic violence]], including marital rape, cannot use the fact that he paid bride price as a defence to a domestic violence charge."<ref name="ReferenceB"/>

The custom of bride price can also curtail the free movement of women: if a wife wants to leave her husband, he may demand back the bride price that he had paid to the woman's family; and the woman's family often cannot or does not want to pay it back, making it difficult for women to move out of violent husbands' homes.<ref>{{cite web|title=Equality Now (2007) Protecting the girl child: Using the law to end child, early and forced marriage and related human rights violations|url=http://www.equalitynow.org/sites/default/files/Protecting_the_Girl_Child.pdf|website=Equalitynow.org|date=7 January 2014 |access-date=14 November 2017|archive-date=28 May 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150528120452/http://www.equalitynow.org/sites/default/files/Protecting_the_Girl_Child.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|author=Lelieveld, M.|date=2011|title=Child protection in the Somali region of Ethiopia. A report for the BRIDGES project Piloting the delivery of quality education services in the developing regional states of Ethiopia|access-date=17 April 2015|url=http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/sites/default/files/docs/FINALChild_Protection_in_the_Somali_Region_30511.pdf|website=Savethechildren.org.uk|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924095119/http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/sites/default/files/docs/FINALChild_Protection_in_the_Somali_Region_30511.pdf|archive-date=24 September 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author1=Stange, Mary Zeiss |author2=Carol K. Oyster |author3=Jane E. Sloan|title=Encyclopedia of Women in Today's World, Volume 1|year=2011|publisher=SAGE|isbn=978-1-4129-7685-5|page=496}}</ref>