Impacts of Resettlement on Women’s Land Tenure Security

This paper seeks to assess the effectiveness of the existing legal framework to protect women’s land rights in the face of hydro power-driven resettlement in Laos PDR. Specifically, it seeks to answer the research question, "In Laos, how effective are the resettlement, land laws and policies and related safeguards at ensuring gender-equitable results?”

Post-Soviet reforms in Kyrgyzstan during the 1990s and early 2000s included the allocation of land for long time use and eventual ownership to residents. 75% of arable land, including over 1 million hectares of agriculture land was distributed during this period. Land certificates named all family members, including minor children, and over half of all shares were distributed to women. However, census data and survey reports since initial distributions reveal that land ownership by women, and especially rural women, has significantly declined.

The findings of this study demonstrate that the despite the bouquet of land laws and other land reforms that have been put in place to make it easier for women to access land rights, both the formal and informal systems remain fraught with multiple extra-legal obstacles in the form of personal (family) security, social acceptance, economic empowerment, and land rights literacy, which hinders women’s’ realisation to women’s lands rights.

Version française du rapport.

Qu’est-ce qui fonctionne en termes de droits fonciers des femmes? Ce que nous savons et ce qu’il nous reste à savoir

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This case study reviews available literature on the land tenure situation of women in Sierra Leone and analyses the impact of an FAO project in two rural villages in ensuring that women are better able to claim their customary rights to land.