Rural Womens Access to Land and Property in Selected Countries

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW),

ratified by 175 countries, is the only human rights treaty that deals specifically with rural

women. This study, undertaken jointly by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United

Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the

International Land Coalition (ILC), analyses information on the status of rural women as provided

in selected reports to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against

Women. All countries selected for this study submitted a report to the Committee between

1997 and 2003. Most are low-income, food-deficit countries. Those that are not have been

selected because they have completed or are undertaking land or agricultural reforms that are

of particular interest.

This report examines the extent to which women’s rights have been respected in those

reforms and looks at measures that have been adopted to ensure women’s access to land and

property, their inheritance rights and their legal capacity. It also presents sex-disaggregated

statistics on rural populations and the rural labour force, and information on gender units or

focal points in technical ministries.