Impairment: Any loss of abnormality of psychological or anatomical structure or function. [CLRA]
Income Poverty: A status whereby a lack of financial resources limits the ability of an individual or household to meet basic needs. What is included in basic needs is culturally determined so that different levels of financial status may be described as conveying relative forms of income poverty. [UNDP]
Indigenous Peoples: People whose ancestors inhabited a place or country when persons from another culture or ethnic background arrived on the scene and dominated them through conquest, settlement, or other means and who today live more in conformity with their own social, economic, and cultural customs and traditions than with those of the country of which they now form a part. [UNEP]
Individual Rights: Rights that are directly enjoyed by individuals (rather than derived rights). [CZSO]
Infant Mortality Rate: The number of infants who die during the first year of life, per thousand live births. Infant mortality rates have declined dramatically in industrial societies. [RSU]
Infibulation: is the practice of surgical closure of the labia majora (outer lips of the vulva) by sewing them together to partially seal the vagina, leaving only a small hole for the passage of urine and menstrual blood. The legs are bound together for approximately two weeks to allow the labia to heal into a barrier. The procedure is usually done on young girls before the onset of puberty, to ensure chastity. It is usually performed at the same time as female genital cutting (removal of the clitoris). The labia minora (inner lips of the vulva) are often also removed. Female genital cutting is often confused with infibulation, but they are distinct procedures. [Wikigender]
Informal Economy: The informal economy forms part of the market economy in that it produces (legal) goods and services for sale or other form of remuneration. It covers informal employment both in informal enterprises (small unregistered or unincorporated enterprises), and outside informal enterprises. Informal entrepreneurs and workers share one important characteristic: they are not recognized or protected under existing legal and regulatory frameworks. The informal economy excludes the criminal economy and the reproductive or care economy. [MIGS]
Informal Labor Market: Work that does not produce pay such as volunteerism, housework and childcare. [Triton]
Inheritance: is the practice of passing on property, titles, debts, and obligations upon the death of an individual. It has long played an extremely important role in human societies. [Wikigender]
International Law: A set of rules generally regarded and accepted as binding in relations between states and nations. International human rights law is a part of international law designed to protect people against torture, inhuman treatment, arbitrary killings, discrimination, failure to take steps to provide adequate food, shelter, healthcare, and other human rights abuses. [HRUSA]
Interpersonal Violence: The use of force between individuals to kill, injure, or abuse. [RSU]
Intersectionality: Tool for analysis, advocacy and policy development that addresses multiple discriminations and helps understand how different sets of identities impact on access to rights and opportunities. Intersectionality is an analytical tool for studying, understanding and responding to the ways in which gender intersects with other identities and how these intersections contribute to unique experiences of oppression and privilege. It starts from the premise that people live multiple, layered identities derived from social relations, history and the operation of structures of power. Intersectional analysis aims to reveal multiple identities, exposing the different types of discrimination and disadvantage that occur as a consequence of the combination of identities. It aims to address the manner in which racism, patriarchy, class oppression and other systems of discrimination create inequalities that structure the relative positions of women. Intersectional analysis posits that we should not understand the combining of identities as additively increasing one’s burden but instead as producing substantively distinct experiences. It is therefore an indispensable methodology for development and human rights work. [MIGS]
Intra-household Allocations: Intra-household Allocations refer to the processes by which resources (more broadly including income and consumption goods, tasks, leisure, and investments in human capital) are allocated among individuals and the outcomes of those processes. Scores of studies have now reported that inequalities exist in the sharing of resources within the household, and that the pattern of distribution commonly demonstrates gender bias. There is considerable evidence from South Asia on inequalities by gender, age and birth order in the allocation of food and other consumption goods. A variety of practices result in some females consuming a lower quantity and quality of food, beyond adjustments for body weight or activity rates. [OECD]
Job Displacement: The permanent loss of jobs due to shifts in employment patterns. With the transition from agrarian to industrial societies, many agricultural jobs were lost, while new manufacturing and service jobs were created. The shifts continue. [RSU]
Kinship: The network of social relationships which link individuals through common ancestry, marriage, or adoption. [RSU]
Labour: Physical or mental work, the primary factor in the production process. [RSU]
Land Tenure: refers to a set of rights which a person or organization holds in land. [UN HABITAT]
Law: A binding custom or practice of society that is codified (written down) and enforced by legitimate governmental authority. [Triton]
Lesbian: Female for whom her sexual orientation is predominantly or exclusively directed to a person of the same sex. Lesbian is used interchangeably with homosexual and gay when referring to females. Lesbian is usually the preferred word of the gay and lesbian community when referring to homosexual females. [MIGS]
Lesbian: A term used to identify a female homosexual. [Triton]
Life Expectancy: The number of years a newborn in a particular society can expect to live. Also refers to the number of further years which people at any given age can, on average, expect to live. [RSU]
Life Expectancy: The average number of years of life remaining for persons of a given age. [Triton]
Life Span: The maximum length of life that is biologically possible for a member of a given species. [RSU]
Literacy: The traditional definition of literacy is considered to be the ability to read and write, or the ability to use language to read, write, listen, and speak. In modern contexts, the word refers to reading and writing at a level adequate for communication, or at a level that lets one understand and communicate ideas in a literate society, so as to take part in that society. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has drafted the following definition: "Literacy is the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate and compute, using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts. Literacy involves a continuum of learning to enable an individual to achieve his or her goals, to develop his or her knowledge and potential, and to participate fully in the wider society." [Wikigender]
Literacy: The ability to read and write in one or more languages. Literacy can also refer to the ability to understand a set of ideas and terms related to a central concept. For example, human rights literacy is the ability to understand and speak in terms of human rights principles and norms. [HRUSA]
Livelihood: The means by which an individual or household obtains assets for survival and selfdevelopment. Livelihood assets are the tools (skills, objects, rights, knowledge, social capital) applied to enacting the livelihood. [UNDP]
