Over the past six months Myanmar has
experienced a surge in new displacement
in four states, while humanitarian
organizations simultaneously faced severe
constraints on access. Border post attacks
on 9 Oct 2016 and subsequent security
operations triggered a new humanitarian
crisis in northern Rakhine. Intensified
conflict resulted in new displacement in
Kachin and northern Shan. Thousands
were also relocated in Kayin State due to
fighting in Sep 2016...

The following Interview was conducted by a community member trained by KHRG to monitor local human rights conditions. It was conducted in Hpapun District on October 12th 2016 and is presented below translated exactly as it was received, save for minor edits for clarity and security.This interview was received along with other information from Hpapun District, including six other interviews and 62 photographs.

Administration of land in Tanzania is more decentralized from the president to the village level. The law gives power to village councils and village assemblies to administer village land. The District authorities are given advisory and supervisory mandates over villages and represent the commissioner who takes overall administrative powers.  Despite decentralization, institutions responsible for land administration, land have continued to be cause of many conflicts for years.  Conflicts have been escalating and lead loss of lives and property.

Women face many problems with regard to land inheritance and land rights in Kenya. Individual and community land ownership do not favour women. The reason for this is that ownership of land is patrilineal, which means that fathers share land amongst sons, while excluding daughters. This practice is traditionally widespread and partly accepted although it goes against the interest of women and is prohibited by the constitution.

While women’s rights to land and property are protected under the Kenyan Constitution of 2010 and in various national statutes, in practice, women remain disadvantaged and discriminated. The main source of restriction is customary laws and practices, which continue to prohibit women from owning or inheriting land and other forms of property.

Kenya’s Vision 2030 aims at transforming the country into a newly industrialized middle income country

and infrastructural development is high on the agenda to achieve this. Competing land uses and existing

interests in land make the use of eminent domain by government in acquiring land inevitable. However

most of the land earmarked for compulsory acquisition comprises of un- registered land whose interests

Globalisation and urbanisation trends in developing countries present both opportunities for growth and development on one hand while contributing to the complex myriad challenges of managing urbanisation on the other hand. Cities and urban areas play a critical in the development of a country. They provide platforms that incorporate intense combination of economic, cultural and political factors of a country or region. Nairobi city is Kenya’s economic capital and is a major economic hub in Africa.

The need for affirmative action and the mainstreaming of the commons community plus a comprehensive strategy to secure indigenous and community land has become a major global concern of the 21st century. To achieve this will require out of the box reform mechanisms and the participation of the communities concerned, such that the reforms recognize and embrace indigenous systems and structures that offer avenues to secure collective rights, land use and management of commons resources; namely pastures, water and forests among others.

Land Registration and Administration in Kenya is currently operated on a multi-legal platform [UN 2013]. The Land Registration Act No. 3 of 2012 (LRA) was in that regard enacted to consolidate, harmonize and rationalize land registration goals; which are yet to be achieved. This is majorly because in as much as the 2012 statute repealed five out of the seven major land registration laws, they all remain in force under LRA’s transitional clauses. The Government of Kenya is making efforts to avail land registration information online via the e-citizen platform.

A presentation focusing on facts about land and land dispossession in South Africa

Northern Uganda is currently recovering from a 20-year long civil war that left the area in ruins. One of the groups, the Lord’s Resistance Army, orchestrated brutal mass murders and abductions forcing nearly two million people to live internally displaced people’s (IDP) camps for over 10 years. The war particularly affected the people of Acholi and Lango sub-regions which had previously suffered sporadic attacks by armed Karamajong cattle rustlers from north eastern Uganda.

Rapid population growth combined with fast rate of land transfer and land conversion urges for an effective land administration and management in Bangladesh. But the land administration system in Bangladesh is corrupt, inefficient, and unreliable and inherently contains systematic weaknesses. It proliferates and perpetuates the endemic nature of land disputes. Nearly 80 percent of court cases in the rural areas are estimated to be related to land-conflicts.