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Biblioteca Changing customary land rights and gender relations in the context of HIV/AIDS in Africa1

Changing customary land rights and gender relations in the context of HIV/AIDS in Africa1

Changing customary land rights and gender relations in the context of HIV/AIDS in Africa1

Resource information

Date of publication
Diciembre 1969
Resource Language
ISBN / Resource ID
1013605

The effect of prime-age adult death and its consequences on access to land for the survivors has not been fully explored nor incorporated into policy regardless the fact that high adult mortality is now

the lived reality in countries affected by HIV/AIDS, particularly in Africa. This paper explores the

gendered relationships between adult death due to HIV/AIDS and changes in land rights for the

survivors particularly widows. In many African societies, women have traditionally accessed land

through marriage. The stability and longevity of marriage guaranteed wife’s continued access to land

and other productive resources. However, with HIV/AIDS, and consequences of high mortality

among prime-age adult men, women’s access to land is increasingly becoming tenuous. This is partly

due to break-down of rules and institutions (including but not limited to wife inheritance) that have

traditionally guaranteed women’s usufruct and other forms of access to land. This breakdown of rules

and institutions, we argue puts women at higher risks of contracting HIV/AIDS. This is not merely an

individual risk, but a societal one, in which the epidemic will continue to perpetuate itself due to overt gender inequalities to ownership and control of land resources.

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