At the Women Deliver conference in Vancouver in June, Dr. Monica Mhoja made an impassioned case for land ownership rights for women.
"We understand that land is life," Mhoja, the Tanzania Program Director for Landesa, told the crowd gathered. "Land is dignity. Land is destiny. Land is hope. Land is empowerment of women and equality. And land is power. The power to prosper. To thrive."
One of the fundamental resources that is essential for the development and sustenance of people in Africa is land.
Land is very important because it forms the basis of agricultural production in the sub-region.
However, it has been very difficult for women to access land in the country, and the continent in general due to multiple issues most of which are embedded on patriarchy as a system which breeds gender inequality.
GOKAI TOWN, BONG COUNTY – Gormah Mulbah and her five children were thrown out of their home last year after her husband died. Her late husband’s family was angry she refused to marry his younger brother. While she thought all hope was lost, a man—whose identify she would not reveal over reprisal—confronted her in-laws over the matter.
Conflicts across Asia are increasing due to clashes with industry, social exclusion, discrimination and historical disenfranchisement
Udaipur — Women, lower-caste and indigenous people across Asia are failing to benefit from land reform laws because of custom and deep-rooted social biases, land rights activists said on Wednesday.
Globally, indigenous communities have legal rights to only 10% of land, according to Washington-based advocacy group Rights and Resources Initiative.
(MENAFN - The Conversation) I met Meritxell and Laia one bright sunny day in April, in thePallars Sobirà , a mountainous county in the Catalan Pyrenees. Both are women farmers and work in livestock management – Meritxell is a cattle rancher, while Laia herds goats and makes cheese.
Control over land management may be more important than mere legal entitlement when it comes to women’s land rights
Our latest WOLTS publication is a fascinating photo essay from one of our pilot research communities, Mundarara, in Tanzania. The piece by Jim Grabham, titled “Are rubies undermining Maasai culture”, shares insights gleaned from in-depth interviews with two participants in a one-year training programme on gender, land and mining that has been developed and carried out by the HakiMadini and Mokoro WOLTS project team in Tanzania.
The approval of the new law has cemented an important step in the fight for women claiming rights to communal lands.
ez – “Although it is too late for me to get back some of my lands, when I see all these women finally getting justice, I feel like the struggle has been worth it. I feel that their joy is my joy,” said Rkia Bellot, a soulalya woman and activist, to Morocco World News.
“Whether they like it or not, it is our right. The law is on our side now.”
With no money and no place to go, the then 20-year-old borrowed money from a neighbour in Thanapada village of Nashik district in Maharashtra, to take a shared taxi to her parents’ home in Gawandh village, 18 km away. Kadale was a farmer who cultivated the six acres her husband owned.
Developing the tools or methods for securing land rights for all, especially for the youth and women, is a primary objective of responsible land management and land administration. Understanding the challenges women and youths face (and possible ways of resolving these challenges) in their quest to access, use and secure land resources, is vital for knowledge building for achieving tenure security for all. However, a broad knowledge gap exists on the land–women–youth–policy nexus of land management study and practice.
Government needs to revisit customary law and use land reform to enable female farmers.
Globally women play a significant role in agriculture. In Sub-Saharan Africa alone, women are the backbone of the agricultural sector and make up almost half of the agricultural labour force, according to a working paper about the role of women in agriculture by the Agricultural Development Economics Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
