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An online discussion leading up to the FAO-IFAD-ILC side event at the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), 27 February – 9 March 2012, New York
Dear all,
There is increasing awareness of the discrimination women face in terms of their land rights, as well as recognition that this is a priority topic for those concerned with food security, rural development, and women's empowerment. In fact, this year, the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) focuses on the empowerment of rural women, which is why the International Land Coalition (ILC), FAO and IFAD, are organising a side-event entitled “How can women’s land rights be secured? Learning from successful examples” at the CSW on 1 March 2012.
My name is Sabine Pallas, Programme Officer at ILC Secretariat in Rome (Italy), and with Luca Miggiano, ILC Consultant on Women's Land Rights and Global Policy, we will facilitate this discussion simultaneously on the Land Portal and in the FSN-Forum. This discussion is aimed at gathering inputs – especially concrete examples from the ground to enrich our debate in New York and raise the profile of women’s land rights issues at the CSW.
Why are women's land rights so important?
The most important resource for rural women is land. Despite women’s critical role and contribution to agriculture, rural development, and food security, women across the world are discriminated in terms of their access to, ownership of and control over land, and the income produced from it. Women’s ability to access land and to claim, use and defend rights to land and other natural resources is weakened by their status within the household and community, as well as discriminatory customary or statutory laws. Growing commercial pressures on land increase dependency on subsistence agriculture and further undermine women’s land rights.
According to FAO’s 2011 State of Food and Agriculture Report (SOFA), evidence of gender inequalities in access to land is ‘overwhelming’: social norms discriminate against women, with customary practices restricting women’s ability to own or operate land, and if they do, that land is generally of a lesser quality and size than men’s (SOFA 2011:23ff), but land rights for women are crucial to closing the gender gap in agriculture. In IFAD supported programmes, secure land tenure is central to reducing rural poverty and increasing agricultural production, as well as achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment. ILC, a network of intergovernmental and civil society organisations, of which IFAD and FAO are founding members, promotes secure and equitable access to land for women and men and has a targeted Women’s Land Rights Initiative.
Questions to be addressed during this discussion and the side event
We would like to request your inputs on:
- (Successful) examples of women claiming their land rights: Can you share concrete examples of women getting to know, understanding and claiming their land rights? Specifically, are there concrete examples of women accessing justice systems to claim their land rights? What can we learn from “not-so-successful” examples? Please share any lessons that might apply in other contexts.
- Examples of policies and tools that promote women's land rights: Which policies have promoted secure land rights for women and how can these be replicated? What innovative and affordable tools can secure land tenure?
- The role of women's organisations: What type of support do women’s organisations need to mobilise, and who are the existing and potential partners in promoting women's land rights? What are effective approaches to ensure that women's voices are heard and get the support of policy-makers? How can women's organisations contribute to community development, and how can the role of women in decision-making be strengthened?
- The wider policy context: What challenges do women face in securing their land rights when land is increasingly used for commercial agriculture, fuel crop production, and conservation purposes? Once land rights are secured, how can women sustain their livelihoods from the land?
Thank you in advance for your time and contributions, which we will synthesise and share at the FAO-IFAD-ILC side event in New York, as well as with as participants at the 56th session of the CSW.
We look forward to a stimulating debate, and in particular hope that you will share many practical examples of rural women claiming their land rights to inform and motivate others working towards securing women's land rights.
You can participate by leaving a comment on this page. We encourage you to join the Land Portal! If you have problems posting, please send us an e-mail (s.pallas@landcoalition.org; l.miggiano@landcoalition.org).
Sabine Pallas
Luca Miggiano
Comments
In a Quest to Change attitudes and perseptions among Kenyan Communities.
The law in Kenya is quite clear as far as discrimination against women on land and property ownership. However, most women continue to languish in the effect of vast discrimination based on customs and retrogressive cultural practises.
Kenya Land Alliance, has embarked on a project aimed at realising women's land and property rights in kenya. Activities within the project include dialogue forums with council of elders from different communities.
Council of elders are instumental in upholding and maintaing cultural aspects within the community. The dialogue forums with such elders seek to make them appreciate the need to shun away retrogressive cultures that hinder women from owning property. The focus is on the constitutional provisions and the consequences of denying women the rights to own land on both economic and social angles.
The council of elders are in most cases male-dominated thus making them unconstitutional. This also presents a challenge when women issues have to be discussed and determined by men only who sit in th council of elders. The sensitivity of women issues among some cultures like wife-inheritance, property stripping for widows and persons living with HIV/AIDS need a gender lence.The project seeks to push for reconstruction of the composition of council of elders to ensure gender balance.
The project combines both change the need to change perseptions and attitudes, coupled by an emphasises on Constitutional provision.
The project concept is as a realisation, that creating awareness on constitutional provisions on women land ownership is not enough to cause change.
Dear participants,
Digest 3:
Dear participants,
What a great range of contributions we have had over the last few days, thank you everyone for sharing your knowledge!
It seems to me that one of the key issues emerging is co-ownership of land for spouses and how to promote it, especially at the village level where tradition stipulates otherwise. An added complication is that many couples do not register their married status. It is the beliefs and attitudes of people on the land, including of women themselves, that many of our contributors mention as a major obstacle to change.
Other important points made included:
- Mere access to land is not the same as secure land rights, which imply control and usually ownership. In Nepal, there has been an increase in titles in the name of women due to the tax waiver, yet questions remain on whether women truly control the land in their name, in a context where customary practices are still predominant. Women’s organisations can contribute to changing attitudes, as can government. (Pabita Sharma).
- In India, similarly, secular laws that guarantee women’s equal rights are blocked by the biggest obstacles: religion and culture. Even farmers’ organisations do not define women as farmers because they fear that this would make women eligible to inherit agricultural land. One suggestion made is to promote group farming for women, i.e. for the commons to be managed by women, giving them bargaining power in the community (Vidya Bushan Rawat).
- If women are being denied basic human rights, like deciding whom to marry and how many children to have, investing in land reforms that give equal rights to women may result in land being managed by a male relative, even if the title is in the woman’s name. One suggestion is to put all such titles in the name of husband and wife (Tanveer Arif).
- The recognition of women’s land rights in law – regardless of age, marital status, and motherhood – is a crucial first step but not sufficient. Such laws are often not implemented, particularly in patrilineal inheritance systems, and women are still strongly discriminated in their access and ownership of productive resources on the ground (Laura Berger). Enforcement should be more effective, for instance in terms of inheritance rights of the girl child (S. Sakamma). Education from a young age is of summary importance to change attitudes towards women as landowners and farmers (Eileen Wakesho), including of women themselves to overcome a “mental attitude of submission” (Gaby Gomez-Garcia)
- One of the most relevant laws when it comes to women’s land rights is succession law, as women, for instance in Uganda and much of Eastern Africa, continue to acquire land mainly through inheritance – yet the girl child and widows are disadvantaged or ignored in inheritance. Making such laws gender-neutral could contribute hugely to women’s empowerment (Robert Bogere, Laura Berner).
- Increasing women’s awareness of laws that guarantee their rights can have a huge impact if information is disseminated in an accessible manner and can reduce the “social taboo” of women controlling land (Laura Berger).
- Increasing the representation of women in decision-making at all levels, administrative and political, is extremely important and strengthening women’s leadership is key to achieve this (Shah Mobin)
- There should be special provisions for single women, widows, women from the most marginalised sections of society to be given preferences in land redistribution – a kind of affirmative action (Vidya Bushan Rawat).
- The land rights of indigenous peoples are complex: they may have a common property title, but internally, land is distributed – and the community rights can act as a shield behind which the lack of recognizing women’s rights disappears from view leaving them in a vulnerable position. In Bolivia this is one of the main problems that remains to be addressed (Gaby Gomez-Garcia).
- Paying attention to social and gender dynamics benefits the entire community: Women pastoralists have an important role in the sustainable management of natural resources, and working with women, including through the establishment of women groups aimed at enhancing participation in decision-making, has contributed to improving the knowledge of sustainable resource management (Ykhanbai)
- In the move toward commercial agriculture, women are more vulnerable to losing their feeble rights, often pushing them to take up employment for low wages and in bad conditions (in Bangladesh); women are also increasingly moving to urban areas (in Bolivia)
- Public investment in land, e.g. for infrastructure, as other pressures on land, continues to have a strong impact on women as they are seldom consulted as landholders and do not receive compensation, this makes them dependent on other (male) family members goodwill (Laura Berner).
- Women’s land rights in the context of climate change was another important issue raised – women react and adapt differently and thus responses to climate change need to take women’s needs into account (wikigender).
On the role of women’s organisations, our participants agree that it is a crucial one, which is very encouraging:
Examples of policies and instruments that promote women’s land rights were provided from Bolivia, India, Kenya, Nepal, Rwanda, Tanzania and Tajikistan. Please see the individual posts for more detail. You can also reply directly to any of the posts below if you have comments or questions!
Finally, if you want to check what references there are to women’s land rights in international conventions and treaties, please check these posts we made recently on the Land Portal:
http://landportal.info/resource/documents/references-womens-land-rights-international-instruments-and-references-gender-dra
http://landportal.info/resource/global/references-land-beijing-platform-action
This discussion will continue until Monday, so please continue to contribute. After that, you can always sign u to the Land Portal to continue sharing information!
Best, Sabine
Recopilación 3:
Estimados(as) participantes: ¡Que gran variedad de aportes recibimos en los ultimos dias! ¡Gracias a todos por compartir sus comentarios!
Me parece que uno de los temas clave es lo de la co-prepriadad de la tierra para los cónyuges y como se puede promover, especialmente a nivel de los pueblos, donde la tradición estipula lo contrario. Una complicación adicional es que muchas parejas no registran su condición de casados. Son las creencias y actitudes de la gente, incluso las de las mujeres, que muchos de nuestros participantes mencionaron como uno de los principales obstáculos al cambio.
Otros puntos importantes se incluyen:
Sobre el papel de las organizaciones de mujeres, los participantes coinciden en que es un tema crucial, lo que es muy alentador:
Los participantes han proporcionado muchos ejemplos de políticas e instrumentos que promueven los derechos de las mujeres a la tierra, en Bolivia, India, Nepal, Ruanda y Tayikistán. Por favor, consulten las entradas individuales abajo para más detalles. ¡También pueden responder directamente a cualquiera de las contribuciones de abajo, si tienen preguntas o comentarios!
Finalmente, si quieren comprobar las referencias a los derechos a la tierra para las mujeres en las convenciones y tratados internacionales, por favor revisen las paginas que hemos hecho recientemente en el Land Portal:
Esta discusión continuará hasta el lunes, así que por favor sigan contribuyendo. Después de eso, siempre les invitamos a registrarse en el Land Portal para continuar el intercambio de información!
Saludos, Sabine [Traducido por Luca]
Judy Adoko (LEMU - Land and Equity Movement, Uganda) sent us a set of documents to contribute to the on-line discussion. Thanks Judy! I am sure your perspective on women's land rights and customary tenure is enriching our discussion, and providing new answers to our questions.
You can find the documents on a page of the Land Portal, Women's land rights and customary tenure in Uganda, as well as by following the links below:
Judy sent us also a number of resources on land grabbing, with some references on women’s land rights, that you can access here: Lets fact upto land grabbing.
As a pre-view of the work done by LEMU, an excerpt from one of the documents mentioned - Fighting the wrong battles? Towards a new paradigm in the struggle for women’s land rights in Uganda - follows (but we invite you to read it entirely!)
Gender equality vs Traditional culture
The conventional starting point in the battle is often the ‘fact’ that traditionally women are not allowed to own land. The aim is then to replace traditional systems of ownership (‘customary tenure’) with more ‘modern’ laws which give women rights. The ‘best’ way to do this, it is argued, is to help women get titles to land. Titling land takes it out of customary rules: a woman with freehold title is fully equal to a man with freehold title. The State Courts can then protect her rights if a man tries to take control over her land. The objective then becomes to increase the number of women holding titles. The proportion of titled land owned by women (7%) is frequently quoted as an indicator of gender equality in land rights – a quite bizarre idea, for a country where over 80% of land is held without title, since it says absolutely nothing about the situation for the vast majority of women in the country. The situation for this rural majority is not improving. Their land rights are frequently violated by members of their own families. We believe that the strategy has failed because it is based on a wrong premise, that according to custom, women cannot own land. As a result, we have fought the wrong battle - against ‘tradition’, instead of fi ghting for the cultural rights that women feel exist, but which are being violated. A central part of the campaign was for ‘co-ownership’, i.e. for land owned by a man before marriage to be legally considered the joint property of husband and wife on marriage. This continued to be resisted by men, and in rural areas, the resistance comes because it is seen as giving a woman individual ownership over land, in a culture where all land is family land. Men and women who value the principle that land is family owned are told that their culture is discriminatory and backward.
The individual violations of women’s rights are often treated in the same way. When a widow is thrown off her land by her in-laws, men and women are told that their culture is wrong, not that those who throw widows off their land are wrong. The widows themselves feel very keenly the injustices practised against them by their families or communities, but the denigration of their own culture leaves women feeling that somehow their own specifi c injustices are not really related to the agenda of the activists, that the abstract campaigns for equality, and against their own culture, that are being urged upon them are not the same battle as the one which they are fighting for, which is for their land rights not to be violated by land grabbers. Small wonder that the fight for their own rights is too often seen as foreign, or ‘something from Kampala’. [...]
[You can read the full version here]
Dear all,
Women pastoralists
Dear all,
I wanted to share excerpts from another publication, entitled “ THE LAND WE GRAZE: A SYNTHESIS OF CASE STUDIES ABOUT HOW PASTORALISTS’ ORGANIZATIONS DEFEND THEIR LAND RIGHTS” published in January 2011 by WISP (World Initiative on Sustainable Pastoralism) based on 21 case-studies, from 17 countries in four continents of how pastoralists successfully defended/asserted their land rights.
Especially interesting is the successful example of Samburu women in Kenya claiming their land rights.
“In women’s access to land, the link to traditional societal stereotypes is evident. In both Kenya and Kyrgyzstan, men are considered to be the head of the family and property owners. This is true even if men have emigrated and women are the de facto heads of their households (Kenya–Samburu). Women have rights to land via their spouses; widows inherit land in trust for their children. (Kenya–Samburu and Kyrgyzstan). For instance, in Samburu, Kenya, according to dominant cultural norms, livestock is given to, owned and managed by men; and it is only brothers, sons and brothers-in-law who are meant to inherit property. In local governance and decision-making, women have no rights to speak in public discussions and debates (Kenya–Samburu).
This is true in the customary traditions of Kyrgyzstan, even though the Soviet administrative system provided for equality through its system of centralized control and the formal legislation of the Kyrgyz State is now liberal and gender sensitive. For instance, in the case of Kashka Shu, men represented families in the Pasture Management Community, even though it was the women who managed and utilized the summer pastures. In India, the deterioration of the position of women pastoralists goes hand-in-hand with the deterioration of the position of pastoralism in society (India–MARAG).
In some cultures women have an equal position and are integrated in the decision-making processes regarding access to land and land management. In Nepal, in the Langtang community, women usually make decisions about pastureland management practices as men are away most of the year. The Nepali system also succeeds in integrating poorer and socio-politically weaker individuals. Another example is the Tibet AR case-study that describes steps undertaken by a community specifically to mitigate the impoverishment of a part of the livestock-keepers.”
Successful example of women claiming their rights:
“MAKING USE OF FORMALIZED CUSTOMARY LAW
In the Samburu district of Kenya most of the land is classified as Trust Land, which is a common property tenure system whereby land is managed on behalf of the people and is vested under local governing authorities in the form of County Councils. Each person owns land, but communally. The County Councils award use rights pertaining to Trust Land. In the case of Umoja Women’s Village, 15 women from different areas within Samburu approached the local council for land so they could live together within a village. They all escaped gender-based violence, inequitable gender relations and gender-based conflicts. Their intention was to help each other and to create a ‘good life’. They convinced the Council that this was a genuine activity and were allocated a small piece of land on a collective basis.”
Read the full document here: http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/land_rights_publication_english_web.pdf
Marcos legislativos que aseguran acceso preferencial a la tierra para mujeres rurales –
Por lo que yo conozco, en America Latina se observa la existencia de dos leyes, la Ley 731 de 2002 de Colombia para mujeres rurales y la Ley 717 de 2010 de Nicaragua para la creación de un Fondo de compra de tierras con equidad de género para mujeres rurales.
Ambas Leyes han sido el producto de una demanda de base de grupos organizados de ciudadanas, mujeres que han logrado desempeñar un papel político en el diseño de instrumentos para tutelar y favorecer las mujeres rurales. Sería interesante monitorear el nivel de implementación de estos marcos legislativos. En el caso de Nicaragua el Fondo todavía no existe.
Si es verdad que las políticas y las leyes prescinden las limitaciones de los proyectos de desarrollo y aspiran a satisfacer las demandas de todas y todos la/os ciudadana/os, es verdad también que la implementación de estos marcos legislativos encuentra muchos obstáculos. A veces, un pequeño proyecto tiene más resultados concretos de una política nacional.
En el caso de Colombia y Nicaragua así como en otros países en el norte y sur del mundo, las mismas promotoras que han logrado la aprobación de la ley tienen que ejercer continua presión para su implementación, monitorear presupuesto estatales y normas.
La exigibilidad de la ley es un paso fundamental en el ejercicio del derecho. Y las mujeres rurales y sus organizaciones necesitan respaldo también en este marco de acción.
I
Dear Land Portal members,
I wish to thank you all on behalf of the FSN Forum team for this lively discussion carried out in partnership with the FSN Forum (http://km.fao.org/fsn/).
Please find here the link to the complete list of contributions received, including those sent through the FSN Forum and the Land Portal: almost 70 in 2 weeks!
We look forward to read and share with our members the summary and any further news on the upcoming CSW side event!
Best regards
Renata Mirulla
FSN Forum moderator
MG Chandrakanth from India shared the below via e-mail – thank you very much for contributing!
“I have a few ideas towards this. There are umpteen number of developmental programs offered by developmental departments for farmers and people in rural areas. India lives in villages said the Mahathma Gandhi. Hence it is crucial that women in rural areas need to have secured rights to land. However more than 90 percent of land titles are in the name of the male farmer. Only in the case of widows, the title to land gets transferred to the widow before she subdivides the land rights to her children. Thus, a women gets title, largely in the case of widowhood.
Another way of giving title to land to women is to make it compulsory for farmers in India to have the land in the name of farm women in the case of receiving benefits from developmental programs such as subsidy for tractors, subsidy for power tillers, subsidy for horticulture, drip irrigation, sprinkler irrigation and so on, so that unless the farmer transfers the title to the farm women, he will not be eligible to receive the benefits.
There are developmental programs in India which demand that the property is exclusively registered in the name of female. The details were provided by Ms Kavyashree, former PDO, on 29th July 2011 when she gave a lecture to my students, as I am teaching a course on Developmental programs in Karnataka State. The credit for this should go to Ms Kavyashree.
The housing schemes (scheme of building house for houseless people, who are below the Poverty Line) house will be registered in the name of female. Requirement is that the person should have a 'site' which can be in the name of 'male', but the house sanctioned under the scheme will be in the name of 'female'. The schemes are:
1. Ashraya yojana which pays Rs. 40,000 per house
2. Ambedkar yojana which pays Rs. 40,000 per house for SC/ST families
3. Indira Awas Yojana which pays Rs. 60,000 per house - the house is registered in the name of female, and can also be registered in the name of both wife and husband.
4. Basava Indira Yojana which pay Rs 63000 per house for those living in huts or very old houses
One such program is the Indira Awas Yojana where dwelling units are constructed for SCs/STs, freed bonded laborers and rural poor below poverty line."
Dismas BIRINGANINE Coordonnateur de l'ONG APRODEA (République démocratique du Congo)
Les femmes défendent leurs droits fonciers par 3 voies notamment :
Les femmes leaders sont formées en plaidoyer et lobbying. Les femmes formées organisent des conférences et ateliers où elles invitent les décideurs politiques, coutumiers pour expliquer le droit foncier des femmes et présentent leurs cahiers de charge aux autorités afin de recouvrer leurs droits.
L'APRODEA comme ONG de proximité qui accompagne les structures dans cette problèmatique mènent le plaidoyer auprès des services des cadastres pour sécuriser les terres des femmes victimes de spoliation par la délimitation et la délivrance des titres fonciers (certification de propriété), mais avant ceci le code foncier est vulgarisé ainsi que la loi sur l'héritage car c'est là où les problèmes se posent car dans milieux traditionnels lorsque l'homme meurt souvent les fils ainés qui héritent ravissent les champs à la veuve et à ses enfants et le redistribuent à sa propre progéniture. Ceci étant APRODEA est préoccupé pour vulgariser la loi sur l'héritage qui stipule que la veuve a droit à 50% des biens de son mari (y compris 50% des champs)+1/8 de ce qu'on a distribué et tous les enfants doivent en avoir y compris les filles. AINSI une fois les femmes informées, elles revendiquent leurs droits.
Fait à Bukavu, le 25 janvier 2012
Further to my previous comment, when laws exist, women often don’t have access to legal services or legal literacy to be able to claim rights. Here is an example from Tajikstan on this: Tajikstan established 16 District Task Forces (DTFs) to provide legal advice on land rights. Between 2003 – 2008, staff provided legal advice to approximately 14,000 rural women and men and as a consequence, the proportion of farms registered to women rose from 2% in 2002 to 14% in 2008.
Also, what about women's land rights in times of weather variability? Women's land rights need to be secured even more in times of crisis. Women and men react and adapt differently to climate change (http://wikigender.org/index.php/Gender_and_climate_change) and therefore it is essential to take women's needs into account to minimise the negative impacts coming from climate change on the community as a whole. For this, women's access to technology is also crucial (as well as access to land, credit and property). See more: http://www.icrw.org/publications/bridging-gender-divide
I am from Pakistan which is predominantly a tribal-rural as well as increasingly turning as religious society, where in general women are under tremendous pressure caused by tribal traditions, falsely understood religious beliefs which push them to marginalization. If we talk about land rights for women, in my opinion this priority comes down under the list! I am saying so because women here deserve basic human rights such as living as a free will person, decide about their education, choice of person for marriage, choice of having children or not, seeking their identity as a citizen having equal rights as men. However social indicator shows that we as Pakistani society are far away from that. Women in rural areas still treated as "property" or "honor object" for men and these are their fathers, brothers and sons who decide about their fate. In this scenario we have observed that even a women is awarded land by the state, she can not manage it, like a man does, because of so many reasons, such as she cant go to the market, negotiate, she has no access to information etc. So we have seen that practically the land is again managed by her spouse of relative. So this is a basic fault in the society which still doesn't give a space to the women and they have to face many limitations. I don't want to be pessimist but trying to say that we have to cover a long distance on the road and and give women their deserving place in the society, by strengthening laws, and creating a favorable environment. We should also encourage civil society to create space for women and then we have to introduce certain laws which ensure daughter to get equal land share in inheritance like sons get. Also when state distribute land to landless farmers, it should be given to families i.e. husband and wife, and even in case of divorce women should not lose her share. We need to create certain opportunities for women which is must, then the real benefit of land reforms reach to women
World Bank on Rwanda's land regularisation program
I want to share excerpts from a World Bank Paper on Rwanda - a good example of how a change in law can improve women’s land rights. For details and references, please check the original paper, available online. Of course, one should bear in mind that Rwanda has been at the forefront of promoting gender equality, including through quotas for political representation, and has the largest percentage of female parliamentarians in the world, so that seems to be a very enabling context!
Rwanda's land tenure regularization program has had a dramatic impact on women’s land rights. A World Bank working paper (Authors: Daniel Ayalew Ali, Klaus Deininger, and Markus Goldstein, August 2011) evaluates the short-term impact (some 2.5 years after completion) of the pilots undertaken, with three key findings emerging from the analysis:
“In Rwanda, formalization of women’s land rights helped to expand their land access and tenure security while clarification of intended inheritance (by registering the claims over land parcels of minors) increased clarity.
As is common in customary systems, women in Rwanda formerly had land use rights only through their husbands whose lineage controlled the land, implying that their right to own or inherit land was severely compromised. In fact, widows were unable to inherit their deceased husband’s property and at most were allowed to use it until male children grew up. Those without children lost even use rights to family land unless they maintained family ties by marrying one of their husband’s brothers. The 1999 inheritance law changed this by advancing in three areas. First, daughters and sons are granted equal rights to inherit their parents’ property. Second, subject to the provisions of the family law (which under the most common conjugal property regime mandates equal shares), property rights by women under a legally registered marriage are protected. Third, spousal consent is required for transaction (e.g., sale, mortgage or exchange) of matrimonial property by any of the marriage partners. Nevertheless, the law does not protect property rights by women who live in marriages that are unregistered or arrangements, including consensual unions, customary or religious marriages, and polygamous unions, that are not formally recognized
The 2004 Land Policy put forward general principles for efficient and sustainable use of scarce land resources and called for a legal and institutional framework to achieve these. The 2005 OLL provides the legal basis for the necessary arrangements. One of its key provisions is to establish a single statutory system of land tenure in order to end the dualism created by parallel existence of customary and formal tenure systems. Ownership of land is vested with the state; landholders are provided long-term, usufruct rights (up to 99 years, depending on land use) that can be sold, passed on to heirs, mortgaged, leased, or otherwise transferred.
Clarification and documentation of rights reduced uncertainty over who would inherit land, with substantial benefits for female children who might otherwise have been discriminated against. This program also provided large additional gender benefits. Legally married women were significantly more likely to have their informal ownership rights documented and secured after registration. But women who were not legally married saw diminished property rights, in accordance with the law. And girls residing in female headed households were less likely to be designated as heirs.”
ActionAid report “Farming as equals. Women’s rights and gender equality makes the difference” takes seven concrete examples of policy interventions which highlight good practice for focusing on women farmers. One good practice example is taken from Guatemala and focuses on women farmers mobilizing for land rights and participating in government processes.
Women in Guatemala have been mobilising for land rights since the beginning of the peace process in 1993, led by the Alianza de Mujeres Rurales (Rural Women’s Alliance). With support from a range of international groups, the Alianza has made significant progress in women’s rights to land in Guatemala through the process of coownership.
It has participated in national level advocacy work with the Rural Development Law demanding its approval and implementation and has generated changes in legislation on women and land.
The Alianza has demonstrated that women’s fulfillment of their right to land is connected to women’s decisionmaking capacities in terms of production, diversification and income-generating activities such as handicrafts and alternative economies.
The example of Guatemala shows how the participation of women’s organizations in agricultural policy leads to more equal outcomes in terms of land rights and access to resources. At the same time, if land reforms are carried out in tandem with broader empowerment programmes then women’s decision making power can be enhanced. Investing in rural women’s organizations supports the achievement of these goals.
For more info: www.actionaid.org/eu/publications/farming-equals-how-supporting-womens-rights-and-gender-equality-makes-difference
Una experiencia en curso en Mozambique es bastante relevante para esta discución: estamos implementando (FAO - Divisiones de Género, de Tierras y Agua y Oficina Jurídica) un par de proyectos sobre los derechos territoriales y uno de ellos es explicitamente relacionado con los derechos de las mujeres. La estrategia que hemos usado mirada, en los primeros años, a crear condiciones a nivel de la politica y de la legislación para que fuesen reconocidos los derechos de las comunidades locales. Fueron necesarios años de trabajo, siendo este un tema muy sensible, como todos sabemos. Poco a poco fueron realizadas una serie de experiencias piloto sobre como identificar, delimitar y reconocer estos territorios, haciendo trabajar juntos instituciones de gobierno, de la sociedad civil y de naciones unidas. En términos metodológicos esto se plasmó con el documento Participatory Land Delimitation, que tenemos a disposición para los interesados. Con los años se crearon las condiciones para empezar a trabajar dentro las comunidades, de manera que las parcelas que las mujeres estan cultivando, sean reconocidas de manera cuanto más formal posible.
El proyecto actual, del cual informará la responsable, Marianna Bicchieri, en los próximos días, apunta a reforzar las capacidades de operadores (hombres y mujeres) que trabajan con las comunidades sobre los temas de los derechos de las mujeres a la tierra.
Fue necesario un tiempo, crear condicones de confianza tanto con el gobierno como con las oprganizaciones no gubernamentales y con las propias comundiades, sin embargo hemos logrado que tres titulos hayan sido emitidos por parte del gobierno de Mozambique en favor de tres mujeres. Son los primeros a ser emitidos en Mozambique, demonstrando que, con paciencia y constancia, se logran desplazar mismo las montañas.
Dear contributors!
Digest 1
Dear contributors!
Thank you very much for starting this discussion! I would like summarise the main points raised and pose a few questions to deepen our discussion:
LETA HONG FINCHER stressed that the structural discrimination against women with regard to their property rights is similar across countries and usually expressed through inequality in marriage, divorce, widowhood and inheritance - and that, in China, rural and urban women are affected by similar mechanisms of dispossession.
Q: Are there any differences in how urban and rural women cope with dispossession and do you know of women (urban or rural) organising individually/in groups to claim their rights? It would be great if you could share more information about the Chinese context of land and property rights, both in terms of the legal structures and social norms that discriminate against women.
JAGAT BASNET from CSRC in Nepal lists grassroots women's collective organising, lobbying policy-makers and a campaign for cultural change that also targets men as crucial elements to achieve improvements for women's land rights, as has happened in Nepal, where tax discounts on women's title registration and joint ownership titles have encouraged more women to apply.
Q: This is a great example of a policy promoting women's land rights! What were your most effective strategies to facilitate grassroots organising, how did women's organisations approach policy-makers and how was the campaign conceived? And what are the main obstacles you had to overcome to work with women and men in communities?
SWADHINA from India stressed that a huge gap remains between laws (that grassroots women lack knowledge of) and the social norms that continue to prevail at local level. Swadhina therefore focused on informing women about laws, packaging information in an accessible and culturally-appropriate way. By doing so, Swadhina raised women's awareness about their rights.
Q: Thank you for this example of how women's awareness can be raised. Could you share how you included other community members, especially elders/tribal authorities in the information campaign and the festivals? How did you engage men and what was their reaction? Does the festival continue after the end of your project?
WALIUZZAMAN from ActionAid Bangladesh shared that a number of policies hinder women's access to land in Bangladesh, though it seems that the government has responded to ActionAid's campaign for policy change.
Q: It is good to hear that government seems to be responsive! What do you think were the reasons they responded to ActionAid's campaign, and how was this campaign built? It would also be great if you could share more details on the policies that hinder women's access to land. And please, do share the findings from your research with us!
PAOLO GROPPO shared the example of an FAO-project on territorial rights in Mozambique that explicitly addresses women's rights. This project started by creating enabling conditions at the policy and legal level so that community rights are recognised, working with government, civil society and United Nations agencies and using a method called " Participatory Land Delimitation" (which they are happy to share with anyone interested). Once community rights were recognised, the project then moved on to recognising individual plots, including those of women, and three titles for women (the first in the country!) have now been issued. Paolo emphasised that it took a long time to build relationships of trust with the various actors involved, including with communities, but that with patience and perseverance, we can move mountains!
Q: Thanks Paolo for the encouraging words, we do indeed want to move mountains! Could you share how you built trust with government, civil society and communities and what the most effective strategies were? Did you work with local or national women's organisations to create the legal and policy conditions? We are looking forward to hearing more from the project coordinator, Marianna, or you, and please do share the methodology for participatory delimitation on the Land Portal!
SIBABRATA CHOUDHURY from India stressed that women's land rights are critical for poverty alleviation and food security, giving the example of homestead plots which can contribute to the family's food basket and reduce malnutrition. However, regulations in favour of women's land rights (for instance, joint titles in government land allocation programmes) are not always implemented and households headed by single women need to be targeted more as they are most vulnerable.
Q: Thank you! On the homestead plots, do you have more detailed information you can share? What do you think are the main factors that block implementation of regulations in favour of women? Do give us more details about lessons learnt on how to address gender issues in the land allocation project you are working on! Also, this article on malnutrition in India and securing women's land rights might be of interest to you!
And, last but not least, RITA, welcome you to the discussion, we look forward to hearing more about your research.
Keep your contributions coming!
Best, Sabine
It is true that women face many obstacles in accessing land (http://wikigender.org/index.php/Access_to_land), especially as many discriminatory practices prevail even when laws grant equal rights. For example, in Kenya women’s access to land is severely restricted by customary law, which essentially prohibits women from owning or inheriting land - even though the Kenyan Constitution guarantees equality of ownership rights for all Kenyan citizens. (http://wikigender.org/index.php/Gender_Equality_in_Kenya) One of the main policy challenges is therefore the existence of multiple legal systems in a given country. There are numerous examples of policy approaches, such as gender-sensitive land certification programmes. For example in Ethiopia, a government-led initiative to counteract women’s financial vulnerability has helped to improve significantly their economic and social status. (http://oecd.org/dataoecd/11/56/45987065.pdf) Accessing land is key for rural women in developing countries as it not only empowers them financially but it also gives them more decision-making power in the household and the community. (See more on Social Norms: http://wikigender.org/index.php/Social_Institutions_and_Gender_Index)
Asia: good practices/innovations
Dear all,
I wanted to share some excerpts from a paper written by Nitya Rao for the Expert Group Meeting held in Ghana in September 2011 in preparation of the CSW. In the paper "Women's Access to Land: An Asian Perspective", she looks at land ownership and distribution patterns in Asia, drivers of change in women's access to land, and lists a number of good practices and innovations (from India, Nepal and China) that I would like to mention here (for the full examples and references, please see the paper itself!):
1) Implementation of existing policies: In Andra Pradesh, India, the Deccan Development Society has since the mid-1980s organised over 3000 low caste (dalit) women in 32 villages to develop, take decisions and establish de facto control (leasing or buying) over low quality fallow lands with financial support from the State Government and organisational support from NGOs (Rao, R, 2010, Agarwal, 2003, while in Kerala, the State-led Kudumbashree programme has put pressure on the local governments to promote collective farming by women on land leased from the state.
2) Social recognition and visibility: Nepalese women organised a massive land march in early 2011 for a supportive legislation and its implementation on the ground, enhancing awareness of existing laws and entitlements, identifying mechanisms for operationalising them through sensitising men, village leaders and state functionaries, and shifting attitudes and values across different patriarchal institutional domains (J Basnet, pers. comm., 8/7/11). See Jagat's comments below also!
3) Policy advocacy and change
a) Claiming legitimate decision-making spaces: Ekta Parishad in India secured the formation of a Land Reform Committee under the Minister for Rural Development after a strong land march by 25,000-people (40 percent women), though the multi-stakeholder Land Reforms Councils Ekta suggested to oversee the process of land distribution (and in which local women and men would participate) have not been implemented.
b) Changing attitudes of the bureaucracy: The Working Group for Women and Land Ownership (WGWLO) in Gujarat, India, has simultaneously mobilised and enhanced the capabilities of women, building women's sub-committees and federations on land, and sensitised the local male bureaucracy (they have been invited to conduct training programmes for the local revenue functionaries) (WGWLO, 2004).
c) Institutionalising the State-society interface to make programme implementation gender-sensitive: ANANDI, a WGWLO member, has set up gender justice centres at the block level run by local sangathan (collective) leaders, women elected to panchayats (local government bodies) and NGO representatives to facilitate the interface with government implementation bodies. As a result, women have been able to secure kisan (farmer) credit cards, widow benefits, ration cards, bank accounts and inclusion of local grains within the PDS.
d) Highlighting the rights of single women as subjects not deviants: The Ekal Nari Shakti Sangathan, a network of single women (never married, abandoned, divorced, separated, widowed) in India, is demanding from the state separate official registration, separate ration cards and two acres of surplus government land on a 30 year lease. In Himachal Pradesh, the first two demands were accepted in 2009, important as markers of identity and enabling access to pensions and jobs. The demand for land has not yet been acceded.
4) Control over the production process: Cooperatives have been an attractive institutional form, demonstrating alternate pathways for production and marketing. While the nature of private, household-based land-holding has made cooperative agriculture largely unsuccessful, the Chinese example demonstrates the benefits of providing pre-and post-production services through village cooperatives. In India, this has been successful in the dairy sector, exemplified by the Amul brand, led by the Kheda Milk Producers’ Union in Gujarat. While women constitute a majority of livestock managers, nevertheless, they still comprise a minority 18 per cent of registered membership.
5) Political leadership: The 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments in India, which provided for one-third reservation of seats for women at all levels of local government, has contributed to a process of positive change. Despite critiques, women now do influence agendas and decisions locally, including on resource distribution, and not just serve as ‘proxies’ for their husbands.
Dear contributors,
Digest 2
Dear contributors, thanks for sharing your experience and your work! Please note that comments can be made also in Spanish, French and Portuguese. Contributors have touched upon some important issues:
Please, continue participating!
Land to the women or to ensure land rights to the women is eco- political issues. This issue is directly related to the reform of the state character. Without political negotiation this is very impossible to insure land to the women however political pressure is must. To change feudal power structure, to change M dominating production relation and to change the cultural position of female in every household, state character have to change because these all are directly/indirectly related to states’ policy making nature. In all change process all political issues have to be deal politically and same things should be followed on this issue also. To make overall change, to insure land rights to the women, very strong women/people peaceful movement should have to be organized, which will create positive environment/pressure for political negotiation and to reform the state power relation. To get ultimate result in land rights to the women, bottom level land rights movement (land to the women movement) support to make environment for political debate of the issue, empower women to political dialogue, unified people around movement and support progressive political forces for change.
Keshab Dahal
Abhiyan Nepal, Sunsari
From the Gender Studies Network on LinkedIn, two comments below.
Thank you very much for your contributions!
Ndahafa Dr Nghifindaka- Tjiuongua • ALL COMMENTS BY THIS GROUP MAKE SENSE TO ME WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING AS WOMEN OF THIS GLOBE
Arthur Eveleens • I agree with you Ndahafa. At the same time, however, we also need to do something as men of this globe.
I certainly agree with equality before the law, which, ironically, means that, if I was a judge (which I am not, just for purposes of discussion), gender, race/ethnic group, sexual orientation, religious views (assuming that one was not deliberately harming others on the basis of these views) and so on and so forth would not even come into the equation. Having due regard to all of the evidence presented, I would sentence, for example, a corrupt banker for being a corrupt banker and a murderer for being a murderer.
Lady Justice (Justitia), a symbol of law, is often depicted with scales in one hand and a sword in the other, and a blindfold. In my view, this blindfold does not, and should never, stand for ignorance. It stands for the impartiality of proper law, hence the foregoing comments.
Women should have land rights and more rights in general in societies where such rights for women are absent. That is beyond doubt. In societies where women have equal rights under properly drafted and impartially enforced law, however, they must bear in mind that they also have responsibilities.
For example, if I remember correctly, the motto of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is 'Fiat panis' (Let there be bread). In my view, food security should be a human right, not a gender right.