Gender and land reforms in Pakistan

Women’s land ownership and control have important connections with their empowerment in Pakistan’s agricultural context. However, the link between these has largely remained unexplored; and there has been negligible research to determine how many women own or control land in Pakistan. The Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) carried out a multiple pronged research in 2007-09 to fill this knowledge gap and to examine the causality behind women’s land ownership and empowerment. The research focused on women’s rights vis-à-vis the inheritance framework of private agrarian land; and did not encompass private residential or commercial property, neither did it cover other possible means of land acquisition by women like through purchase or as gifts.

The research spanned rural areas across all four provinces of Pakistan, drawing on national laws, existing policies, literature review and field work. The qualitative data was gathered through interviews, surveys, focus group discussions, life histories, narratives and case studies.

This Policy Paper briefly traces the chronological evolution of land organization to examine the context, direction and underlying objectives of state-led land reforms in Pakistan. It does so with a specific focus on the interface of land politics and gender relations, with the understanding that land, among other resources, has been one of the key components for maintaining patriarchal control of women; that rural women’s lives are intimately connected to land, on which they are direct stakeholders.

The author observes that all the laws related to land reform had a built-in gender bias. The inaccessibility and complexity of the legal requirements and bureaucratic processes further diminished the chances of women claiming and acquiring whatever limited rights they were granted through legal reforms. In conclusion, the author is of the opinion that land reforms in the long term, (especially for women) must be accompanied by deeper structural transformations to achieve any significant change.