"In many communities, customary law is used as a tool to deny women their rights to housing, property, land, and inheritance."

BANGKOK - An indigenous woman in northern India is taking her fight for inheritance rights to the country's top court, leading others who are pushing back against sexist laws and customs.

Ratan Manjari, who heads the women's rights group Mahila Kalyan Parishad in Himachal Pradesh state, received land she had inherited from her parents - a rare occurrence where she lives.

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"Gender, Land and Mining in Pastoralist Tanzania" is the product of rigorous field research over two years by WOLTS team members from Mokoro and HakiMadini. Significant stresses from mining, population growth and climate change, as well as disturbing levels of violence against women have been uncovered in this study of two traditional pastoralist communities in Tanzania. Initial findings are based on repeat rounds of participatory fieldwork by the WOLTS team and have already received attention at national and local level.

Partnering towards access to land and secure land rights for inclusive development

"We are the original inhabitants of this island...this regulation denies us what is rightfully ours"

TAIPEI - Taipei's Peace Memorial Park is an oasis of calm in the bustling city, home to morning walkers and lunchtime strollers - along with a camp of indigenous protesters demanding justice.

For several months, the small group has lived in tents in a corner of the park, with a makeshift kitchen and a cluster of painted rocks, photographs and posters tracing Taiwan's indigenous history and their fight for land rights.

Maasai from four villages on the outskirts of the Serengeti sued Tanzania for the right to return to their villages which have become part of a park

NAIROBI - Maasai herders near Tanzania's famous Serengeti wildlife park have asked a regional court to stop the government intimidating witnesses supporting their legal bid to return to their ancestral land, a lawyer for the community said on Thursday.

NAIROBI - Chiefs across Liberia are petitioning lawmakers while activists prepare for a sit-in protest in the nation's capital as they push to secure ancestral land rights, regarded as key to averting renewed bloodshed in the resource-rich country.

About 100 women marched on the presidential palace last week to kick off a campaign to amend the Land Rights Act (LRA), a watered-down version of which was passed by the House of Representatives in August, after years of delay, activists said.

Hundreds of people gathered on Samoa's biggest island on Saturday to protest the abuse of customary land rights.

A spokesperson for the Samoa Solidarity International Group said 700 people came from across Savai'i to push for a repeal of the Lands and Titles Registration Act 2008.

According to Unasa Iuni Sapolu, the act allows communally held customary lands to be leased to third parties without the consent of all landowners.

She said this alienated some of the owners from their land and the opportunities it offered.

BANGKOK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The brutal rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in India, that has triggered massive protests, highlights nomadic tribes’ vulnerability and lack of land rights, activists said.

According to the police, the girl was kidnapped, gang raped and killed in the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir as part of a plot by Hindu residents to evict her nomadic Bakkarwal community from a village where they had temporarily settled.

Cases of double ownership of land are common in Kenya, where cartels collude with officials to create parallel titles for parcels want to acquire illegally

NAIROBI/ACCRA, Feb 16 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - On a recent Saturday afternoon, Joseph Njuguna received a worrying call. Without his permission, someone was excavating a small piece of land he had bought six years ago.

When he reached the site he found an excavator digging up soil, and two yellow Tata trucks waiting to ferry it away.

Deadline: 01/10/2017

“Protecting our land for a prosperous future”

Guam’s indigenous people have endured centuries of hostilities

HAGATNA, Guam — The threatened missile attack by North Korea on Guam has prompted calls for peace from the island’s indigenous people, who are weary of yet another conflict after enduring centuries of hostilities.