Despite a legal ruling and international attention, Kenya's Ogiek people have continued to face evictions, underlining the inherent difficulties in implementing judgments

The continued dominance of colonial-imposed laws over pre-existing customary legal systems, has been the bane of land rights disputes involving indigenous peoples across the globe for many years.

Post-colonial states have been unable to address such issues since formal law has continued to prevail over ancient customary systems even post-independence.

‘Slum clearance’ or ‘city beautification’ drives accounted for nearly half of the evictions.

New Delhi: Over two lakh people were forcefully evicted from their homes in the year 2018, a new study by the Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN) has found. The HLRN documented the demolition of 41,730 homes in 2018 that impacted the lives of 2,02,233 people. That is 554 people every day or 23 people every hour.

Tribals insist that their land is most important and they will vote for those who will ensure that nobody takes their land

In the heart of Maoist stronghold of Bastar in Chhattisgarh, nationalism is not a vote catcher.

Tribals like Bheema Mandavi (35), claim that their right over land is the main poll issue.

Having a title, deed or lease is the key that turns informal occupants into citizens, yet 70 percent of the world's people still live without documented property rights

The lack of a strong land record keeping system is partially responsible for the slow recovery from Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. With as many as 700,000 households lacking clear titles to land and homes, aid to rebuild properties has been denied to many.

NEW DELHI - A push to formalise land claims, map settlements and digitise records is not always in the best interests of vulnerable communities, and may even lead to greater rights abuses, analysts warned on Friday.

From Peru to the Philippines, governments are curtailing the rights of indigenous communities and forcibly resettling people in slums, land campaigners say, while mapping lands and digitising land records with the aim of increasing efficiency.

Such has been their determination to reclaim their rights, particularly land rights, that even the government of Karnataka has acknowledged the force of these women

Her hair is white, her face wrinkled. But her spirits are high as she belies her age to play the drum hanging around her neck. As she twirls round and round, the beating of the drum becomes more frenzied. The message is loud and clear; playing the drum, once considered a symbol of their caste untouchability, is no longer a stigma.

The claims are by tribal or pastoral communities seeking community rights over forest land they have inhabited for generations.

Under a land reformation act, millions of farmers across Myanmar could be forced from land they have tilled for generations. Many are unaware of the danger they face. Peter Yeung and Carlotta Dotto report from Yangon.

It took less than a day for Daw Oo Naing's entire banana plantation to be destroyed. A group of 21 men carrying long knives arrived quietly in the morning and made quick work of hacking down her 600 trees, which were still young with tender trunks.

About 8 million indigenous people in India are in danger of being evicted from forests that their ancestors have lived in for millennia. This grave injustice follows a shocking supreme court ruling that rides roughshod over the rights of India’s indigenous people, known as Adivasi, or tribals.

The Supreme Court has directed 17 states to evict the Scheduled Tribe members and traditional forest-dwellers, whose claims to Forest Rights Act had been rejected, before July 27.

In early October 2018, residents of Trapicheiros—a small favela of 52 families situated near Salgueiro in Tijuca, in the North Zone of Rio—began receiving messages of harassment from strangers on the Internet. 

With less than two months before the newly amended Vacant, Fallow and Virgin Lands Management (VFV) Law goes into force, millions in ethnic rural areas now face the risk of eviction while others across the country may lose their lands upon return.

Labelled by land rights NGO Land In Our Hands (LIOH) as “burdening and oppressive”, the amended VFV Law worries many, as more conflicts are likely to ensue and could tear the already divided country apart once enforced.