CO-Advocacy on Women’s Land&Property R

General

While WLRs are suppressed by several factors including: negative social norms and practices, legal illiteracy, dysfunctional infrastructure to track WLRs, neo-liberalism, etc., one of the major problems relates to fractured women’s agency and weak voice. Interventions by government and NGOs in the form of legal awareness have yielded little as many women still struggle to assert and defend their rights to land in the absence of external backing. The inclusion of women in land governance institutions like Area Land Committees, District Land Boards, Local Council Courts as well as the broader affirmative action slots in local government, parliament andCabinet have not necessarily translated to stronger WLRs in Uganda. On the contrary, existing literaturesuggests that women in influential positions have on some occasions instead frustrated pro-women laws and policies since their portfolios puts them in a position of privilege. Whereas it is still important to leverage women in leadership roles to advancethe WLRs cause, it is still critical to diversify options by empowering the rural woman and transforming power relation in favour of WLRs. Through strengthening women civic groups, the project hopes to enable them to identify problems, set goals, make choices and then act upon them to realise WLRs. Inability of women to access and utilize land in Uganda: In Uganda, land is male dominated and patriarchal. Most of the land in Uganda is not titled and is owned customarily. Customary land is governed and administered by norms and customs which often impede ownership of land by women. The fact that a section of the population cannot own and utilize land has led to food insecurity, increased poverty levels, negative climate impacts and in dependence on the male gender. This financial dependence is the reason we have many issues of gender-based violence to start with. Many injustices have arisen from the inability of women to access and utilize land. Lack of capacity for women to develop land: In the few cases where women own land, they are incapacitated to develop it. For land to be used in such a way that brings economic development and reduces poverty, it has to be commercialized. Uganda’s land is undeniablyvery fertile and most of it is arable. However, most of the women who own land can only practice subsistence farming on a small scale. Most of the produce is used to feed their families which does not create a shift in poverty levels. Land has to be commercialized and used for the growth of perennial cash crops for example coffee. The growth of these crops usually requires modern methods of farming for example ploughing, modern technologies, chemical fertilizers which are all costly and most women cannot afford them. Thisrequires empowerment of women.